Brianna+Courtney

Male bonding over Saturday eggs

Every Saturday morning Bennett and Brian do what every manly pair does... scramble eggs lovingly together.
It's heartwarming.

And heart-healthy(er) now that I've convinced him to ditch the butter and cheese additions and instead use a TB of coconut oil.


Bennett ADORES his daddy. The little guy is thrilled to do just about anything with the big guy.

NPS stands for Happy Cheap Groceries.

Ok I don't actually know what their NPS means.
I just know it makes me ridiculously happy to walk out of there with 2 heaping baskets of relatively healthy groceries having paid a fraction of what this would've cost at Smiths.
I don't care that the store is poorly staffed and a little disheveled looking.
Or that I have to bag my own groceries and avoid eye contact with questionable looking shoppers.
I rarely even dare bring my children with me. But I always bring my coupon folder, cuz on the lucky chance I find an item there I have a coupon for, it's basically free!
I got Larabars for a quarter, fresh kale bundles for a buck, my fav apples for .39/lb, red bell peps .50, chiobani greek yogurts for .25, kids' cereal boxes for a buck....I could go on and on.
But now I'm feeling a little lame for being so overly excited about cheap groceries :) NPS Store... see you in 2 weeks! (cuz Brian won't let me go more often than that, ha!)

Wearing baby

It would be a sad world for me without my baby carriers.

Baby gets a happier, longer nap, and I have two hands free to do housework and/or play with the older ninos. 

Speaking of which... does anyone else experience this:  guilt while doing housework, knowing you should be playing with the kids, and guilt while playing with the kids, knowing you should stop ignoring all the housework....
I CAN'T WIN!!

Grumpy Courtney D.

I don't know what's up with our little female twin lately...but she's needed lotsa extra love and attention. Especially at night - before bed and sometimes during the night. She wants backrubs and snuggles and reassurance that there are no ants that are going to eat her.
 
We're happy to give it to her of course...but it'd just be nice to actually stay in my bed all night occasionally.


How in the world can I even think of having more kids than we do if each one is so high maintenance?!!

Strolling for all ages

Charity got her first intro to stroller rides this week.
I think she's a fan.

Not surprisingly, Brianna loves to be the one pushing (until she gets whiney and tired and insists on sitting in the other half of the double stroller.)

6 yrs old and still loves stroller rides!

Do you wanna build a snnoooowmaaann....

We got some movie passes for Christmas, and since Charity's a little beyond the age where she's guaranteed to just easily sleep through a movie, I decided to let Brian and Brianna go.

 They saw FROZEN... and Brianna's been singing the songs ever since.

I struggle with Disney movies, in general. I don't HATE them... but I feel like there are SOOOsooooSOOO many other BETTER options for screen time entertainment.
So many of the "classics" have such terrible portrayal of women.
Or the films depict females achieving their "happily ever after" despite horrible defiance and rebellion against their parent(s). Crappy messages I don't want sent to my babies.

I haven't seen Frozen, but from reading reviews, it sounds like this might not be any better. Sending the message of celebrating rebellion, ignoring moral absolutes, and embracing the "anything goes!" pervasive mentality.

I know, such a Negative-Nancy perspective, right? Just chill out and stop analyzing it, right? Wrong. If *I* don't teach her correct values, who will?  
Oh, yeah - Disney movies.  

Brianna is the Earth

Valentine for Clementine

Since I have little inclination towards instigating or allowing messy craft projects at home, I jumped at the chance to bring my children to Discovery Gateway where the craft project (and cleanup) would be provided by others.
Brianna and I are both pretty thrilled that her new best-friend-for-the-day in the red shirt is named CLEMENTINE. And she's a cutie (how fitting!).
Is it too late to change Charity's name??

Laundry napping

We've discovered that having Charity nap next to the w/d makes for excellent white noise, and does a great job of drowning out the noise of siblings. And she has some noisy siblings.
It's funny to me when I stop and think about how different having a baby the fourth time around is than the first. I have no idea how long and at what times Charity sleeps. And she's always in a different spot....sometimes in the carrier, sometimes my lap the whole time cuz I'm working on the comp, sometimes on my bed or her little bed, sometimes on her little bouncy chair... I give very little thought to it. Zero stress involved.  But rewind 5-6 years ago, and I actually kept NOTES... I was totally aware of when my baby did what and where. And I cared. I thought it was important. I worried about silly things like habits. I believed all the hype I read.
I'm not saying one way is better than the other, or that a superior method of parenting even exists. I'm just saying that it's kinda fascinating to me to stop and consider the differences in now vs then.

First Sprout

3 months old & Sunday best

Interview:    http://youtu.be/2dqNLp1_wTA

Thr

 

Big-little sister

Balloon Artista

All partied out

Her birthday hasn't even come yet (it's tomorrow), but she's already exhausted from the partying. Kangaroo Zoo with 8 little kids was a lot of fun!

Beet juice birthday cake

We had planned to purchase Brianna's birthday cake from a gal in Clearfield who has a bakery biz. I like supporting local moms. And she was giving me a great deal, plus customizing it for Brianna. I was pretty stoked. But then she cancelled on us just a couple days ago for a fam emergency. So sad! Which meant I had 2 choices: a boring chemical filled mass produced load of sugar from Costco/Smiths, or make it ourselves.
Homemade sounded daunting, but we dove in and made it happen!

The pink comes from beets - I just ground up half of one along with the eggs in the vitamix (a little goes a LONG way!!)
It tasted great and was a hit with everyone - kids and parents!
The cake itself is a whole wheat flour base - ground from white wheat (I've learned that red wheat will turn out far more dense). The chapsticks (Lipsmackers) around the cake are the party favors.
It was worth all the effort to see how delighted Brianna was. I love my little 6 year old!

Christmas VIDEO finally done!

While Brian and the kids were off yesterday breaking commandments with relatives, I finally got our Christmas video done. I've been meaning to do this for weeks, but it took me awhile to figure out Windows Movie Maker. Which is sad, because it's the most basic video editing software out there.

But now that I've played around with it, hopefully I can do better home videos in the future.
Watching other people's home videos has got to be one of the most boring things ever, so I'm guessing my mom will be the only one to make it through all 11 minutes of this:

http://youtu.be/67z3VmaVDVY