2 weeks ago tomorrow

Baby G was born.  Beautiful delivery.  Favorite quote from the midwives who were there, after it was over:
“You really didn’t need us.” 

Yep.  I agree.  Glad they were there anyway, and grateful (so grateful!) that they read my mind in terms of their involvement.  After the initial monitoring and the barbaric waking of the baby with a loud buzzer on my tummy (Oh look!  Now that he’s awake his heart rate looks wonderful.  Go figure!  Sorry, baby - I would be trying to sleep through labor if I were you, too.)  they left me alone and let me do my own thing.  It was exactly what I wanted. 

My favorite:  During that initial monitoring — the one where the stuff is strapped around your tummy — the nurse in L&D let me undo the obnoxicity that is an elastic-strap-around-a-contracting-uterus …

Full with so many blessings.

And you know what is up there on my blessing list currently?

This lovely blogging community.  You know who you are, all of you.  At least I hope you do.  And I love you.  Even if I don’t comment often.

Alas, I haven’t spent a great deal of time reading everything everyone has written, and I clearly haven’t been writing much either.  You should see how my stats have tanked over the last 2 months… Whooo-wheee!  Not that I care. —  No, really, I don’t any more, which is a rather refreshing change.  I’m a curious person, so I leave …

This little monkey man is at the stage most would call “handful.”

How’s that?

Well, let’s just say I discovered this week that he has the amazing ability to turn a bottle of glue into a 35-ft trail across the house… in all of about 30 seconds.  Maybe he needed the trail to find his way back to the sink.  Maybe he was just trying to make it obvious that I really do live in a Family Circus cartoon.

Happily, I also discovered glue cleans up pretty quickly, even off couches.  Thank goodness for small miracles!

The little monkey stinker boy figured out how to climb out of the crib about… oh, 3 months ago, maybe.  This was bad news for bedtime, but good news for Freedom who had definitely outgrown the bassinet. 

My first two kids made the transition out of a crib pretty …

Surprise, surprise, they had a part in Alice, too!   The bigger kids were flamingos and the little ones were hedgehogs.

They crawled around, climbed over each other, and took turns sporadically jumping up into the air while the “flamingos” danced & flapped around them.  It was super cute.

C even featured as Alice’s hedgehog, and obstinately didn’t go through the arch – like a good little rebellious crochet ball.

Poor Alice.  She really struggled with that flamingo.  Fortunately for her, she woke up not too much later.

…

This was no “small dance group” for geeky, withdrawn, uncoordinated homeschoolers.  This was amazing.

Instead of one class after another, like I expected with a end-of-school-year recital, they pulled everything together into a full-blown “ballet” of Alice in Wonderland.

I guess I should mention that I don’t recall ever having been to a ballet.  Nope.  Never seen Nutcracker.  Never been to anything like it, so this was a first of it’s kind for me.

They had interpretive dancers being “water” from Alice’s tears, they had a crazy jazz number at the Mad Hatter’s tea party, an awesome chinese-dragon-style Caterpillar, and pretty much every other …

And so has her two-year-old brother.  Nothing like straight protein powder while mom nurses the baby.

Doodle, on the other hand, has been strong.  Super strong!

He was a little bit happy about splitting that board.  I’ll have to load the video of him telling us the story.  Someday.

Freedom has been learning to crawl.  It’s still in the very beginning stages, but it is indeed official.  He can do it.  The army crawl business is on it’s way out before he even gets it down. I’m seeing my life in the near future consisting of a LOT of sweeping and vacuuming.

And there was much rejoicing.
Yay.

(And see? I told you my laundry room was a disaster.  I’ve been working on it.  Slowly.  It does indeed look better than that now.  Sort of.  Kind of… That red-curtain is still firmly in place.)

Hope you’re …

Once upon a Sunday…

An adorable 12-year-old (who would probably die if he knew someone called him adorable) was passing the Sacrament for the first time that day, and I happened to be sitting in his line of duty.

I have long since forgotten exactly what happened (and come to think of it, I’ve forgotten which new, adorable Deacon it was!) but that new adorable Deacon made some silly mistake, some noticeable breach of “protocol,” in passing the Sacrament to me.

My heart went out to him in complete and …

The parents kids have enjoyed them to no end, as you will see.

Yes, Eagle won the binky war. For now, anyway. He started searching out small choking hazards and putting them in his mouth in absence of the pacifier… You understand.

Added note: The “pirates” are sailing the seven seas currently, with a “ship” built from every cusion off the play room couch (sigh) and a great big parachute tied to the tops of 5 chairs.

You know, I’m beginning to see that not only do children not *need* toys — they don’t even really *want* them. My kids, at any rate, are perfectly happy just being creative. Maybe I got lucky and happened to get creative genius children. Or maybe I just have three pretty normal kids (albeit abnormally cute, according to my biased opinion) who don’t have commercials …

Amidst all the clutter calling to screaming at me in the library/office, laundry room, and all the bedrooms upstairs, there’s a little voice telling me to

“Maintain ground covered.  Slow down.”

So that’s what I’m doing.  Sometimes I sneak in and tackle a shelf in the library… but then I take a big breath and stop.  It really is wise to learn to take care of the things we’ve cleaned before we go on and clear more space.  Otherwise it might unravel, which is what has happened every other time I’ve tried this.

Aside from that, it’s been a busy, wonderful, crazy week.  I am going to need some *serious* me-time tomorrow.  An hour or two completely to myself?  Mmmm…. yes, please! And a nap?  Well, if you insist.

Pictures, pictures, pictures.  What to …

Clutter:

My nemesis. My weakness. My challenge.

Round One:

Round Two: – Not pictured.

Round Three:

That Heely’s box is was full of paperwork & junk, just in case you were wondering.  Groan.  It was the last thing dealt with.  It wasn’t as bad as I feared, as is usually the case with clutter.

Round Four - all that was left was — you guessed it — the Heely’s-box-of-doom.  But don’t worry.  I came out victor.

See?

You can see a picture frame on the left… The other half of this shelf/counter was full of pictures.  Not with any particular rhyme, reason, or purpose — They were just filling space and part of my CPP (Clutter Prevention Plan).

You see, one of the problems with a Clutter Addict like myself is the fear of emptiness.  An empty shelf?  AHHHHHH!  NO!!!!!  Fill it up!  Quick!

A …