Matching jammies

Andrew's cousin Ashley—whose boys are Rachel and Miriam's ages—had a baby girl two months ago. I think it's kind of funny that our kids line up so well (aside from, you know, Benjamin, Zoë, and Alexander)!

Ashley posted two-month pictures of Scarlett the other day, along with her one-month pictures for comparison—because babies do a lot of growing those first few weeks. I saw this post while I was lying in bed, nursing Phoebe, just as the sun was beginning to rise, and I noticed that Phoebe was in the same pyjamas Scarlett was wearing in her one-month pictures!

Here's Scarlett at one month (we're not jealous about her hair at all (just kidding; we totally are)):

Moving in

Grandpa's moving truck arrived on Friday afternoon, so we headed over to help unload. Unfortunately, we'd waited so long that Andrew had eventually decided to go grocery shopping (since grocery shopping on Friday takes much less time than on a Saturday), so he wasn't home when we got word the truck had arrived, which meant that I headed over by myself with the kids. 

I'm not sure how helpful a mom and six kids are when it comes to unloading a moving truck, but we seemed to make pretty good headway before Andrew arrived to do the heavy lifting. 

Phoebe did us the favour of falling asleep and taking a good long nap on Grandpa's floor, so I got to do some decent helping before Andrew got there. And Rachel and Miriam were excellent helpers as well.

Here's Phoebe not napping on Grandpa's floor:

Phoebe at 4 months

Phoebe is four months old today! I don't know how big she is because her well-child check isn't for a couple more weeks and, well, I haven't bothered to measure her myself. Suffice it to say, she's a growing concern.

She recently learned how to laugh—like full on belly laugh—and it's highly amusing for everyone. Here's a video from a couple days ago when Miriam came into my room around bedtime and engaged Phoebe with peek-a-boo for the first time (it's not the first time we've tried peek-a-boo with her; it's simply the first time she "got" the game).

Warning...there's some baby spit-up (or, as we like to call it, Phoebe Cheese) involved...

I don't think anyone has ever had more fun playing peek-a-boo! 

Park day

We made it to the park today (for the first time in a long time) and spent our mid-morning and early afternoon there. I made the kids run a mile and the only one who cried was Alexander (who wore flip-flops despite my explicit instructions to put on socks and shoes, and who subsequently tripped and fell and scraped up his toes), so perhaps this means our endurance is improving.

Here's Alexander being happy about the goose in the background (there was a pair of geese wandering around the whole time we were running):

Wednesday/Thursday

Wednesday was just about the hardest day we've had in a long time. The kids simply didn't want to do anything they were asked to do...so they just didn't. I was absolutely swamped with work and drowning in baby spit up and the kids simply walked all over me. 

I say "kids," but really Miriam and Rachel were helpful and on task most of the day. But those younger three. Oh, boy. I was about ready to sell them to the circus.

Andrew is usually around on Wednesdays, but he had meetings on campus all day. And it was just...a hard day. 

Thursdays are traditionally my hardest day of the week because that's when Andrew is usually gone all day so I'm on my own from sun-up to sun-down (and then some), but today Grandpa came over to have dinner with the kids while I holed up in my bedroom with Phoebe and did schoolwork. It worked out really well.

Phoebe was exhausted from playing at the park all afternoon, so she took a good, long nap (and I took a little one, too, since she was up until 3:00 last night). I wrote an entire paper and sent some important emails. Rachel fixed dinner, and then the kids ate dinner, watched a movie, and played a round of UNO with Grandpa. He even stayed to pace the floor with Phoebe while I read bedtime stories (while Rachel was at seminary (on zoom) and Miriam was practicing the organ). It was the most relaxing Thursday we've had in ages!

Despite the kids being...the way they were...yesterday, here's some cute pictures from recent history...

Phoebe grinning up at us from her stroller:

When Grandpa Comes!

One thing led to another, which turned into a snowball effect of sorts, and...suddenly...Grandpa lives around the corner from us! It's a little surreal to have family nearby all of a sudden, but it's been fun so far.

At least for us.

Andrew went to close on the house on February 28th and for FHE that week we took the kids over to tour the house. They were very excited to explore!

Kelli and Rosie's visit: the deets

As always, I have a million other things that I should be writing, but I've decided to get some blogging done (a) as a treat and (b) out of necessity. Last week Kelli, Rosie, and Irie were here. Already it's this week and Grandpa is here. So I have a lot of ground to cover!

Fortunately for me, Phoebe had a string of very easy nights, where she went down around 7:00 pm and slept for a good 12 hours (aside from a few wakings to refuel so she could sleep some more). Tonight we were...not that fortunate...but it does mean that I got some good headway on my assignments over the past couple of days. 

Anyway, when Kelli arrived I was surprised to see that she and Rosie had packed three big suitcases. For four days?! It seemed excessive. 

Well, one of those suitcases was filled to overflowing with toys and things for the kids, including a ginormous stuffed unicorn for Zoë and a slightly smaller but still enormous stuffed owl for Alexander:

Happy birthday to them!

My brother and Andrew's Grandpa Frank share a birthday (54 years apart). I won't tell you how old my brother turned this year, but I will tell you that Grandpa Frank turned 93 (David turned that age in reverse). We knew that, and yet when we phoned Grandpa Frank to wish him a happy birthday, Andrew said, "How old are you turning this year—40?"

Grandpa Frank chuckled and said, "I wish. I'm 93!"

"Wow!" Alexander exclaimed. "You're almost..."

Deep down inside, I knew what was coming, but I willed it away, muttering, "Please say 100, please say 100, please say 100..."

"DEAD!"

Sometimes having kids is so embarrassing!

We had a lovely little chat with Grandpa Frank, anyway, and then called up my brother to play some games online. We haven't done that for quite some time (since Christmas or NYE 2020?) because things tend to get a little glitchy with so many people on the call. But with three households combined in my house (represented by me, Kelli, and Rosie), things went a lot smoother. We just had us, Uncle Patrick, and Uncle David on the call, so it didn't get very glitchy at all. It was fun to get to spend some time with my brothers and kids and Kelli and Rosie. 

And it was nice that we got to speak with both Grandpa Frank and David since I didn't get around to mailing birthday cards for them this year.

I'm really hit or miss in that department.

They come, they eat, they leave...

My sister Kelli has been trying to visit us since June 2020. 

I made her postpone her trip, though, because the world felt too upside down right then. It still feels upside down as we're approaching two years of this thing and as vigilant as we aim to be...it's getting really hard to maintain...so when Kelli asked if she could visit, I said yes. 

Then I spent the next several months feeling absolutely sick over the decision as Delta popped up, etc.

But she came at the end of February, bringing along with her Rosie and Ireland, which was so much fun! They were just here for a little weekend visit and it rained virtually the whole time, but that was alright because with a pandemic and two little babies our time was probably best spent at home, anyway.

We told the kids that my sister was coming but kept Rosie and Ireland a surprise. Kelli came bearing and entire suitcase full of gifts for the kids (including, but not limited to a ginormous stuffed unicorn for Zoë (pictures of that later) and matching outfits for Phoebe and Irie). They got in rather late on Thursday night so before retiring for the evening Rosie and I selected outfits for the next day and set our trap...

In the morning, the kids got up and found Auntie K, who slept on the couch in the TV room. I had told the kids that she would be up in Zoë's room so that they would help me get that room ready for company (stripping the bed to wash the sheets, etc) and then after the kids went to bed I made up a bed in the TV for Kelli. So the kids were not expecting to see her down there. They were happy to see her, however.

And then when I got up and came downstairs with Phoebe, Rosie followed me down with Ireland dressed exactly the same way and...the kids were absolutely shocked!

The older girls got up a bit later, so when Rachel wandered into the dining room for breakfast and saw Kelli spotting Irie (who was sitting on the table, something Phoebe can't do yet) she gasped, "What are you doing with the baby?!"

Then she noticed me standing on the other side of the room holding Phoebe, who I'll remind you, was dressed the same way and screamed, "WHY ARE THERE SO MANY BABIES?!"

It was a hilariously wonderful prank.

Here are too many pictures of the babies in their matching outfits:

We painted some things

Andrew just came in from scraping paint off the windows of the front door, which we painted bright yellow on Saturday. 

We've been thinking about painting the door yellow for a few years now and on Saturday we decided that instead of saying, "One day we'll have a yellow door," we would change that to be, "Today we will have a yellow door." 

So now we have a yellow door. 

The paint we chose is called Unmellow Yellow, and it is rather bold, but perhaps not as bold as the Bold Avocado we chose to paint the dining room. 

That was more of a snap decision.

I simply said, "What if we repainted the dining room?"

And Andrew said, "What colour?"

And I said, "I dunno. Green?"