J-Hawk Rocks

This kiddo. I always love when I catch him playing by himself...so content with no siblings to bother/be bother by. It doesn't happen very often, but I caught him playing his "guitar" today. I think he'd make a pretty cute addition to a rock band.

Big Brother

Merrick is the biggest brother around here. As the oldest kiddo he gets a lot of responsibility, and is typically a big help to me. Sometimes I have to ask him to help, and other times I just look up and catch him helping out. It's the sweetest thing, and make me feel like all my yapping about "have each other's backs" at my kids is getting through at least a little bit.

The other day Amaryllis had gone to get her 2 month vaccines. She was doing fine, just a little tired. But when Merrick heard that she'd gotten shots he went upstairs, got his beloved "Bear" that has slept with him since we was a baby, and snuggled it next to Amaryllis so she would "feel better". Be still my heart.

I love watching them take care of each other. I hope and pray that I can raise them to be best friends who genuinely care about each other. There are days when they fight like a pack of wild dogs, but at the same time I think they wouldn't know what to do if they didn't have each other to fight with...and for.

Riding in Cars with Hooligans

People often think I'm kinda crazy for taking 4 kids all the places I end up taking 4 kids. The dentist, the grocery store, etc. This past weekend I decided to attempt probably the craziest 4-kids-included activity yet: we made a 10 hour car trip to see my sister, brother-in-law, niece, and newest niece. I really was nervous about making the trip, and almost decided not to do it about 539 times. I'm so glad we did, though. It was great to see everyone and my newest niece, Ezra, is the most adorable baby doll sized kiddo. (Reminds me of Merrick, who was also a teeny-tiny preemie clothes wearing baby.)

The trip went way better than I expected. I was expecting Amaryllis to literally scream the entire 10 hours since she sees her car seat as a means of torture. She thankfully slept for big chunks of the trip, and only screamed for an hour straight here and there. ;)

 (The two baby cousins...only 10 weeks apart!)

The kiddos had so much fun playing together, and seeing their cousins. We made a trip into Nashville one of the days we were there, wandered around a little and had dinner. One of my sisters was really hoping to run into a celebrity or two, but no such luck. At least not unless you count Tirzah...who will probably be a celebrity one day with her acting skills.

We were sad when we had to come back home, and only partly because of the 10 hour trip back. ;) I think the trip back was better than the drive there, but that's probably because I didn't have another 10 hours in the car to look forward to hanging over my head. The kiddos occupied themselves making up jokes that weren't funny, playing Simon Says and I Spy, and losing 397 crayons. I think I'll sacrifice those crayons since I did manage to not lose my sanity. One pleasant side effect of a whole day in a van with your 4 kids is that one trip to the grocery store with them suddenly seems like a piece of cake.

(Top pic is from our last trip to visit my sister, bottom is from this trip...a lot has changed in a little over a year!)

Big Baby Little Baby

As we've gotten a couple of weeks into the school year, I'm enjoying being back into a little bit of a schedule. We are still pretty flexible when it comes to the actual hours we do school each day, but I've been enjoying the specific time with the older two. Even if there are lots of interruptions from the two "babies" in the family.

The big baby, as you can see, is still baby enough that he needs a nap. Sometimes he needs a nap after his nap. When I took the picture above, we had done school and gone to the park and run by the library and come home for naps. He woke up from his nap, fussed with his siblings for a few minutes, and then I found him like this in Amaryllis's room. Poor guy. It's tough being 2 and a half.

The little baby, on the other hand, likes to boycott naps as much as possible. Or only take naps on mommy. I'm kinda ok with her need for snuggling, though. I'm sure that won't last long enough. And with those eyeballs looking at you who could say no? (Brief reflux update....she seems to be doing better these days. I'm hesitant to say anything definitive, but we've had about 5 good days in a row. That is unprecedented around here. She still has little fits here and there, but no screaming for hours recently.)

While it's definitely tough herding all these wild cats, and I feel like things like this blog and the laundry and my dirty floors and my need for sleep are suffering for a bit until we get more settled, I am really loving this phase with all four of them. I think they can stay my (big and little) babies for as long as they want.

Stress-Induced Laughter

There are so many stressful moments during any given day around here. Four kiddos deep, there's gotta be some stress. But they also make me laugh...so hard. Harder than I've probably ever laughed. Sometimes they are trying to be funny...but most of the time its just them, discovering the world around them and being absolutely hilarious in the process.

Jericho is talking so much more these days. Granted its still hard for the outsider to understand, but he's improving with his speech all the time. I love listening to him jabber...and the way he says things is so hysterically cute. In the above pic, I was working on something and heard him saying, "I seeeee you," while he was staring at me through his pretzels.

I found those two having a snack. Laying on the cold, probably dirty, mud room floor. I mean, not where I'd choose to have a snack, but whatever floats your boat.

We surprised the kids with Sweet Frog the other night. They LOVE sweet frog...they always get a little ice cream to go with their cup full of toppings. And they get the most disgusting, random assortment of toppings I've ever seen. Everything from strawberries to cereal to oreos. Merrick was upset with Tirzah, though, because of her lack of mustache. He seems to think you can't be enjoying your ice cream unless its all over your face.

But first...let me take a selfie. I found this "selfie" of my 6 year old on my phone the other day. If that doesn't make you laugh and spit your morning coffee out I don't know what will.

And they also make me laugh (and occasionally want to cry) during school. We were working on our math for the day, and I look over and Merrick has repurposed his Math-U-See manipulatives into Wolverine claws. I didn't know whether to roll my eyes at his obvious aversion to math, or be glad he is using his imagination. So I laughed and took a picture. And then to balance out the laughing with some stress, Jericho promptly jumped off the couch and landed flat on his butt and cried for 5 minutes.

Back to School, Back to School...

Yesterday was the big day. The day where I attempt to start homeschooling with a new baby, and a terrorist on the loose. It went surprisingly well considering several scream-breaks from Amaryllis, and the fact that Jericho was into everything. I know at this point we are just doing review mostly, but I definitely breathed a sigh of relief when the kids were excited about their work and we managed to finish all we had planned for the day without any casualties.

I love being able to homeschool. It's hard, not gonna lie, and we are only in 1st grade and Kindergarten. I think the hardest part this year is going to be learning to manage the two littlest hooligans while maintaining some type of organization and quiet to teach the other two. I'd try to do school during nap times, but at this point Amaryllis is leading a nap boycott. (I think some of that has to do with her reflux issues...she often only will cat nap for a few minutes at a time, and wakes herself up crying.) Maybe one of these days we will have the return of nap time in the Barron household.

I want our big goal for this year to be keeping learning fun. I want to raise kiddos who love learning, even more than I want good grades or perfect handwriting or fancy art projects. So many people grow up loathing school. (I think most of us do.) And I know I might not be able to prevent that completely...but I'm sure going to try. I think, from the looks of it, wearing "party hats" at the table, we are off to a good start.