slowing down

I feel like daily I'm making attempts to keep up.

Attempts to clean a house, be a good mom, read my scriptures, keep to a schedule, make dinner...etc. Sometimes my attempts work and some days I feel like I've failed. 

One of my recent attempts was to get some family photos. We were rushed, as we are most days, and we headed up to the mountains after Kyle got home from work to snap a few pictures.

I had it in my head of what I wanted. We had found this beautiful spot from one of our gorgeous Sunday drives and we knew the changing colors would be perfect at this time.

We had had a bit of a rough start and we were running a little late, so I was hurrying to try and get things set up before we lost light. At some point early on in the setting up process my shutter speed on my camera was accidentally changed and slowed down... a nice little metaphor for what I would learn from this whole experience.

It was slowed down so much that many of the shots I had wanted to get all turned out blurry and didn't work out. 

I know what I set my shutter speed to. 

I don't know how it got changed... or why it didn't ruin all the photos.

When I got home and started searching through the pictures I quickly found that I was disappointed with the majority of the family shots. I started going through the in between shots desperate to find something. I didn't want the whole night to have been in vain... and as I found out, this night had been more than worth it.

Not getting the shots I wanted made me focus on some of the photos that I didn't really intend on taking. Most of the following pics were taken to help me adjust my camera settings to the changing light of the setting sun and taking some practice shots while I posed the family members.

Here's what I found.

A picture where I was making sure that the remote would work and giving Porter a chance to try it ended up giving me one of my favorite shots of me and my redhead.

 Bridger and Porter taking a dancing break while I fed Ford and tried to decide the next beautiful back drop of our family pictures.

 A perfect picture of my indescribably handsome husband holding our sweet Ford and trying to make him happy. I was waiting for the sun to go down so there wouldn't be that stark line in the background.

 Two little boys trying to make my third happy... and what I believe to be the first picture of all three boys together.

Everyone trying to give tickles and hugs and smiles to Ford while I was changing settings ended up giving me the first picture of my four boys together.

Too often I'm not focused on the important things... just like these pictures. I have it in my head what I want my days to look like and when they don't turn out the way I had planned I feel like I'm running behind. I get frustrated and feel like the world is moving 1000 times too fast and that there is no way to possibly catch up. 

What I've realized is that it's not about catching up, it's about slowing down.

I'm going to slow it down. I'm going to watch for all those little moments each day that I normally let pass on by without so much as a glance because I'm too busy planning for the next item on the agenda.

I'm really grateful that I didn't get the photos I was hoping for. I never would have noticed the ones that did work out, and that would have been the real tragedy.

Plus, I realized that blurriness can't completely ruin a photo... at least not when you've got my four handsome boys in front of the camera.

two months

 He's getting big. 

11 lbs. 12 oz. of big to be exact.

He is such a sweet baby.

Ford is a good eater and a good sleeper. 

He averages about 7-8 hours of sleep every night.

He loves to smile, and he gives them away like crazy.

He holds up his head really well.

He's got beautiful steel blue eyes.

He is finding his little voice and is starting to talk to us more and more each day.

He'll sleep through any noise. Vacuums, yelling kids, noise at the grocery store... he's following Porter's example (Porter didn't even wake up once during the crazy night we had last week).

Ford loves to be swaddled. It calms him down when he's fussy.

He loves being the car. In fact he likes being in his car seat, and he rarely fusses in it 

(whether it's in the car or not). The only time he fusses in the car is if he's late for a feeding.

I think Ford looks more and more like Bridger every day. 

I can see the brotherly resemblance.

Speaking of brothers, his brothers adore him.

Briggs has early morning preschool and Porter has afternoon kindergarten which makes it perfect for these boys to share their little brother. They each have their own time alone with him each day.

It's been an adjustment here in our house to be sure...an adjustment of the best kind. 

This little boy brings out the best in all of us and I'm just so happy he's ours.

I love you, mister Ford.

kindergarten

That's right, he's done it. He's gone and entered Kindergarten.

Porter's doing awesome. His teacher has been quite impressed with his ability to read. He's such a smart kid who loves books and recess and books and making friends... and a few more books.

I figured I would have my boys write what school year they are entering into and I'll take another picture on the last day of the school year to compare their writing. Forgive the spelling... that was his momma's fault... I do know how to spell kindergarten, but a lack of sleep will change your ability to spell properly. I realized too late my mistake because he was already coloring his rainbow...and with how meticulous this boy is, I wasn't about to make him start over!

Porter's teacher is so sweet and so patient. She's a great fit for Porter. She's also been doing this for years and years and she has come highly recommended.

I walked him into class and helped him find his name badge and his chair.
He sat down and suddenly he looked huge.
I couldn't believe how quickly he had grown.
I held it together pretty well until I waved goodbye. He turned, waved, and with a slight quiver in his voice he said, "I love you, Mom" I told him I loved him too and that he would have so much fun. I told him I would be back to pick him up.

And I turned around and cried.

At the end of the day I went to pick him up. I poked my head in his classroom and he was standing by his teacher. He caught my eye, but pretended not to see me. I tried to call to him to come on out, but he kept looking out the corner of his eye at me and then I heard him asking his teacher, "When is the bus coming to get me? Where's my bus?"

I finally had to go into class to get him, he was determined that he was going to ride a bus home. We talked about it and I explained that if he climbed on a bus that it wouldn't take him anywhere near our home, and he would be lost. He seemed okay with that answer. Then my sweet neighbor (who was there picking up her kids) told Porter that he would ride buses when he went on field trips. He was ecstatic.

When he had finally come to grips with the bus thing, he sat down and told me all about his day.
He did great.
He loved it.
I knew he would.
It was a good first day, and he's loving school. I'm so proud of this little guy.

The very long day... and night.

I've got a lot of things to post. Many pictures and many events that I would like to update the blog with, but first I must put in writing what occurred the other day and night so that I do not forget. I've been stressed out for the past several weeks with attempting to keep a clean home and figure out a little bit of a schedule for our family so that we don't go crazy since I've now headed back to work.
At Kyle's suggestion and in an attempt to simplify things I went and chopped my hair all off last Wednesday... and I love it. Short hair is always so much easier to manage and I had no idea when I grew my hair out how long it would actually take to dry it and style it. When Kyle mentioned that maybe I should cut it all back off, I agreed.
And it was a good choice because when I woke up the next day all I had to do was run a comb through it, spray some hairspray and head out the door... little did I know how nice it would be to have my hair done all day, and night...

We started out the morning with Ford's 2 month Dr. appointment where he received his 2 month shots. His pediatrician to another look at this boys tongue tie and suggested we clip it. We had been thinking the same thing, so Ford got his tongue clipped as well as his 2 month shots... I may have cried... poor little guy.

So from the get-go I knew I would have a fussy little baby throughout the day, and I was correct. Unless he was being held he would only sleep for about 10 minutes at a time before he would wake screaming. Which he doesn't normally do, he'll fuss a bit as he wakes up, but he doesn't normally just scream. Poor boy hurt whenever he moved his legs, or his legs got bumped, so he would want to suck... but that hurt him too. So I held him and cuddled with him all day (the best part of the day).

Around noon I had to go give a presentation at Porter's kindergarten about being a nurse and what I do for work and why I became a nurse.

I don't think kindergarten teachers should ask new moms to do presentations.

I could be wrong, but I don't think it's a good idea for someone who is trying to get kids excited about becoming a nurse to start crying in the middle of her speech about why she became a nurse. I've been a little weepy lately and had to try really hard to control myself when I started in on that story... which, by the way, has never made me cry before.

I left Porter's kindergarten (after apologizing to Porter's teacher for the little breakdown) and headed home. I got to chat with my friend, Maria, who had come over to watch Ford and Bridger while I was with Porter's class.

It was a busy afternoon and evening... driving carpool with a fussy baby, soccer games with a fussy baby, soccer practice with a fussy baby and soccer group pictures with a fussy baby. Load kids in the car, out of the car... and repeat.

We got home, got the boys to bed and set out to make Ford more comfortable. Gave him a bath, which he loved, and snuggled and cuddled some more. (Just to let you know that since this particular day, Ford has been averaging 8 hours of sleep nightly, he's a really good baby when you stop poking him and stuff.)

Around 10:30 I went downstairs to wash my breast-pump. I like to run it through the dishwasher or boil the parts at least once a day. Since my dishes were done, I put the parts in a saucepan and put it on the stove and left them to boil for a bit. Ford was supposed to eat at 11 o'clock but he had finally fallen asleep and was snoozing away on his daddy's chest, so I decided to let him wake up on his own. I got caught up in watching a show and I was desperately trying to stay awake when I started to get really nauseous. Really nauseous. And I started getting a headache. I couldn't sleep anymore, at any moment I was sure that I was going to throw up.

And then I smelled it. I walked out of our bedroom and into a smoke filled house. I had left the plastic boiling in the water so long that the water was now gone... and so were the plastic parts to my pump. Instead of boiling the parts for 5 minutes, as is recommended, I boiled them for over an hour and the whole house smelled horrific.

I got the pan off the stove and doused it in water and opened up the windows. I went to wake up Kyle to get his help in airing out the house. We ended up having all the doors and windows open with an industrial fan blowing the air out of our house at midnight. But, even that wasn't enough. I was still sick to my stomach and couldn't handle the smell any longer. So, Ford and I headed outside to walk around while the house continued to air out.

After an hour or so we came back inside and the house was much better. Around 2:00 I went to close the doors and all the windows that didn't have screens on them. The rest I left open to air out the rest of the house.

I headed to bed holding a somewhat subdued Ford and fell asleep very quickly.

About 4:30 in the morning I was startled awake to Bridger screaming at the top of his lungs, "Get out!! Go away!! Get out!!!" Kyle was up and out of bed so fast and into the boys room.

Kyle started yelling, "Charlie get out! Go home!"

The dog was in the house. Our outside dog, was in the house.

I didn't know a few important details when I headed to bed that night.
I didn't know the dog was still out of his pen.
I didn't know that the windows in the basement had been opened to air out the house.
And I didn't know that one of those windows did not have  a screen on it.

Around 4 in the morning, Charlie came in through the basement window, ate one of the boys stuffed animals and left it's guts all over the basement floor. He then headed upstairs and retrieved a new loaf of bread from off of the kitchen table and took it back out to his pen. Then he returned and set out to find the boys, and at the time that Kyle found him, he was licking Bridger like a popsicle.

Apparently Bridger doesn't like to be woken up that way.

It was a long night.

By the time we got Bridger settled down and Charlie put away it was nearing 5:30. Kyle and I climbed into bed and just started laughing. It could have all ended so much worse.

The house could have lit on fire, who knows who could have broken into the house (luckily it was only our own dog)... we felt very blessed.

At about 7 am Ford was ready to eat again, and that meant that I was up for the day. 

I also worked that night, which meant that I didn't go to bed until the following morning. I was awake from Thursday morning until Saturday morning. It was a long 48 hours with only a 2 hour nap in the middle... but my hair looked awesome.