Seven.

Today is my Merrick Wilder's SEVENTH birthday. I really cannot wrap my mind around that. I so vividly remember so many things about being pregnant with him, and labor and delivery, that it seems like yesterday. I remember the first time I saw his face...that odd mix of feelings about this tiny person who grew in your belly, and their being so familiar and yet still a stranger. And then they gave me morphine and I didn't remember anything for a week. ;) Emergency c-sections will do that to a person.

Before I make myself cry and get too terribly sappy...here is his birthday interview!

1. Who is your favorite person in the whole world? That's easy...YOU!

2. What is your favorite color? That's easy, too...it's blue.

3. What is your favorite TV show? Shark week. (He's petrified of sharks.)

4. What is your favorite outfit? Jeans.

5. What sport do you like best? Sport...hmmm...soccer.

6. What song do you love? Yes. It's "Sailed". (He means Sail by Awolnation.)

7. What is your favorite cereal? Tony's! (That means Frosted Flakes.)

8. Who is your best friend? Caden. (His cousin.)

9. What do you want to be when you grow up? I wanna be what Luke and Jesse are...workers. They paint and work. (My uncle is a contractor.)

10. What is your favorite book? Narnia.

11. What are you really good at? Jumping. I mean climbing. (That's a no brainer.)

12. Where do you wish you could go on vacation? To the beach.

13. What is your best memory? The time where we went to Nanny and Pop's and had a sleepover and watched Superman.

14. What would you buy if you had a lot of money? A motorcycle. (I've seen him ride his bike. Heck no.)

15. What food do you hate the most? Pineapple. I don't like it. It's crazy.

16. If you could have one wish, what would it be? I would wish for an iPad. (You can tell we don't do many electronics around here.)

17. Who is your biggest hero? What you mean my favorite superhero? Uh...Captain America. 

18. What is your favorite dessert? Ice Cream. Vanilla Ice Cream.

19. What is one of your favorite things to do? Help dad work and fix stuff.

20. What is one thing you hope you'll get for your birthday? Army men. (It's the little things.)

This kid. He melts my heart. He has the sweetest heart, the most boundless energy, the shortest attention span, the fewest front teeth, the most awesome hair, and gives the best back scratches and goodnight kisses. I love watching him grow, and hate it all at the same time. You're so precious to me, baby boy...I'll probably never get over how blessed I am to be your mama. Happy 7th birthday!

Entertained

This pretty little thing is growing up so fast! We have been able to enjoy her company so much more these days, as well as watching her start to enjoy the world around her a little bit. She has even decided that she doesn't absolutely hate these things called toys, and that her playmate actually isn't a means of torture.
She's been spotted playing and chatting with that baby in the mirror. Also grabbing at her toys and kinda looking a little shocked when she happens to snatch one. It's awesome to see her entertaining herself a little bit. And let's face it, if you can't manage to find entertainment around this place you're gonna lead a pretty boring life.
Love seeing you happy and playing little girl!

I Miss My Camera

I don't get to spend nearly enough time with my camera as I'd like. It always seems like if I pick it up, someone else who will remain nameless but we all know who she is, wants to be picked up. She's our pet diva. Except we already had one diva in this house...so here's to doing double diva duty for the foreseeable future. I'm trying not to imagine my home when these two girls are teenagers.

I can occasionally trick her into letting me take pictures by handing her to Merrick. (Unfortunately...her diva sister is too prone to spaz attacks to hold her and keep her calm.) Merrick is really good with her, though, and loves to hold her and help feed her. So if it seems like there are a lot of pictures of Merrick holding Amaryllis, but not Tirzah holding Amaryllis, now you know why. ;)

I so love photography. It's fallen to the back burner like so many other things...this blog, and sleeping, and eating, and having any type of free time, or showering. I know these full days are exactly the thing I want to document, though...so I'm going to make an effort to pick up my actual camera as opposed to my phone more often. 

Granted a lot of times by the time I get to the camera, whatever was happening isn't happening anymore. Like last night when we were having another daddy-works-all-night induced movie night, and all four kiddos were lined up on the floor and content. By the time I got the camera Amaryllis had lost her mind and was about to be voted off the island by all the siblings who now couldn't hear the movie.

Even though I didn't actually capture it in my camera...I know that image is going to be burned into my brain for the rest of my life. No, not the one of Amaryllis screaming...although that is definitely going to be burned into my brain...but the four of them, as little as they'll never be again, together and happy.

There are some things I am looking forward to hopefully catching with my camera again. But there are also the things, like that moment, where I know I just wont be able to capture just how precious this time with these kiddos really is, or how fast it's moving.

Picking Pumpkins with my People

Last weekend we had some pretty great weather. The hooligans have really been enjoying the cooler weather, and even without my asking, spend hours outside playing. (Even Tirzah, who is notorious for NOT wanting to go outside.) Tonight I had to tell them to come inside, because it was completely dark and they were still in the backyard.

We took advantage of the cool sunny weather, and went to pick pumpkins. Last time we did this, Jericho was a baby. Billy and I took turns carrying him in the carrier...and it was probably more of a workout than carrying all those pumpkins around. Amaryllis is a much more manageable load to carry through a pumpkin patch.

The patch we go to has an "all you can carry" deal for $20. I usually like to take full advantage of this, at Billy's expense. This year we ended up with 10 pumpkins...so I got my money's worth, and Billy got an arm workout. Win win.

I don't do anything fancy like cook anything pumpkin-related with all the spoils. (I ruin frozen pizza, remember?) These pumpkins will live a long and healthy life on the front porch, free from the fear that I will cook and eat them. I'm sure a kiddo or two will trip over them, but that's about the biggest worry they'll have.

I know everyone knows I hate cold weather...and I do. But I definitely don't mind spending a sunny afternoon with my people, and a bunch of pumpkins, celebrating this gorgeous season called Autumn. Ya know, the season before that one season we don't speak of in this house.

Fix It

So as you're probably aware...I recently had a baby. Well, it kinda seems like forever ago honestly. But she's only 3 months old. It also feels like forever since I was able to fit into my own pants. (And I'm not counting the stretchy kind.) Such is a day in the life of a mother of 4.

I've been blessed with good genes (thanks, mom!) and an odd love of exercise, so thankfully I've always been able to lose all the baby weight with each kiddo. (And for all you goofballs who wanna say I don't gain much while pregnant...I do. My hips -and their lack of ability to wear my pants- don't lie.) This time around finding the time to workout is the problem. Four kids make a person kinda busy.

I admittedly haaaaate eating healthy. I'd rather workout for hours than skip dessert. I realize this is setting a terrible example for my children, however. As well as my husband and his fragile will power when it comes to burritos the size of a baby, and cookies as big as his head...somebody's gotta say no around here. I've tried detoxes and random things before to get us on a better track health wise, but it never lasts for long. I had determined once Amaryllis was here I was going to change our eating habits (more for health's sake than weight) once and for all.

I have a friend and old college roomie who is a fitness coach. I remember seeing her talk about the 21 Day Fix. It was easy to say 'that is what I'm going to do once I have this baby' BEFORE I had this baby. It's not so easy once you've been 10 days without your beloved soda and you dream about cake at night. But we've committed, and I think one of the things keeping me going is committing and buying the program. The tightwad in me has currently got the junk food addict in me by the neck saying, "We paid for this and we are gonna finish it. Ya hear?!"

I'm totally sure that I will probably always dream about cake and love diet dr pepper...but I do want to take care of myself so I can take care of these four reasons I can't fit into my pants. They are a busy group of people. They take no prisoners. So I've gotta be on my A game. And apparently that involves occasionally eating your veggies. Who knew?