Sunbeam

I'm still two months behind, but I'm finally crossing over into documenting 2017 which feels like progress! 

We kicked off the new year by sending Crew to his first day of Primary. All of his preschool buddies are in Sunbeams too and since they are so familiar with each other, it's a nonstop party. They're animated, they're loud and they're wiggly. Everything you can expect from a group of 14 three-year-olds.

It's a challenge having Crew sit in the front row while I'm trying to teach music to the entire group. He gets frustrated when he doesn't constantly have a turn to participate and he thinks he can get up and talk to me whenever he wants. It's an adjustment coming into Primary from Nursery where it's mostly free play. We'll get there. I do enjoy seeing his cute face grinning up at me. Next year, all four of my boys will be in Primary. Where does the time go?

Snapshot 2016

For years, I have written snapshots of the routines, habits, milestones and quirks that make up our current moment in time. I document events with way too many photos regularly, but the purpose of these written snapshots is to remind us in the future what life was like "way back then." 

The original idea was to write the snapshot at the beginning of each school year, but it has progressively crept further and further back into the fall. This year I haven't been able to get my act together before now, so here we are in March.

I started writing this to be a snapshot back at the end of last year. I was almost done when Christmas break hit and I never got the chance to post it, so let's just go back in time for a minute and pretend it's still fall.

Here we go:

Blake makes his breakfast and lunch and is usually ready to go before I even get up in the morning. 

Nash needs some reminders to eat breakfast and we go through a battle every morning trying to think of things he will actually eat for lunch. He prefers hot foods over sandwiches. He has a thermos that we often put leftovers in.

Blake and Nash walk to and from school together. They leave at 7:40am and get home around 2:30pm. Crew cries if he doesn't get to hug each of them individually before they walk out the door. He runs down the path for those hugs when his brothers forget and rush out the door. 

The boys spend a lot of time playing in our alley. We are blessed to have friends they can play with on our street. On one particularly hot day, they needed to get some energy out so I sent them outside. I laughed when I saw that they had created a shady retreat.

Blake responds to texts for me when I'm driving or busy, but not without the use of approximately 67 emojis.

Blake loves to help cook. He can make grilled cheese sandwiches all by himself.

Blake started watching the cooking show Chopped with Troy when he was home recovering from surgery this summer. One of Blake's favorite things to do now is create concoctions with random ingredients.

Blake's grandparents gave us an extra apple peeler they had lying around a few months ago and Blake uses it every single day without fail. 

He usually whips it out of the cupboard immediately upon arriving home from school.

It not only peels apples but it slices them into one long curly piece. I get sick of cleaning up the cores and peels every day, but I can think of worse snacks he could be addicted to.

Blake's two front teeth have been out for almost a year and a half. The dentist can see his permanent teeth in X-rays, but we're starting to wonder if they will ever poke through. He has since lost 4 more teeth so he basically looks like a jack-o-lantern.

Troy and I both try to take the boys on regular one-on-one dates, even if it's something simple like getting ice cream. 

Blake is a full-fledged cub scout. 

Troy volunteers as the Cubmaster which means he plans monthly meetings involving several packs, or all of the scouts ages 8-11. I get lost when they start painting faces, talking about the wind and crossing mini bridges for advancements, but Blake loves everything about it.

Blake and Nash's favorite movie is The LEGO Brickumentary. There was a time when they watched that documentary on repeat and Nash says he wants to be a LEGO engineer when he grows up.

We joined The LEGO Store VIP club which means we can participate in exclusive monthly LEGO builds. The problem is, I have to sign up online on the 15th of each previous month in order to guarantee spots. If I don't add their names to the list first thing in the morning, the spots are all gone. And despite putting reminders in my phone, I frequently forget to sign them up until it's too late. The boys loved attending LEGO builds the few times we did get on the list early enough. They give them each a small kit that can be built in the store and then they get to bring it home with them.

Blake and Nash are at the ages where it's really fun to play games with them. We play the card games Golf and Scum on a regular basis. They love all board games but their favorites are Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan Jr. and Sheriff of Nottingham.

We rarely have a weeknight where we don't have any after school activities. Between Blake's piano lessons, swim team practices and cub scout meetings and Nash's basketball and baseball practices, we are always on the go. And we only have two boys with commitments so far! Thankfully, their school starts and gets out early, so most of the boys' activities are done before dinnertime.

The hours between dinnertime and bedtime are pure crazy town. We make sure to get all homework and piano practicing done immediately after school because if we wait till later on we have no chance of focus and cooperation. Crew and Finn usually do laps around our kitchen island on their wiggle cars while I'm trying to load the dishwasher. Blake and Nash rotate between pillow fights, light saber duels or wrestling matches. Having a yard to send them out to play in was definitely a luxury; we dream of having one again someday.

Troy is much more efficient at bedtime than me. I linger in each room, tidying up and making sure dirty clothes are in baskets and new clothes are set out for the next day. I let the boys read. I lose focus and get overwhelmed sending instructions to get pajamas on, brush teeth and pick up toys in all directions. But Troy gets the job done with no fuss. Pajamas, teeth brushed, prayers and lights out lickety split. It may look like a tornado the next morning, but he can get them to bed in a third of the time it takes me.

Nash loves when I snuggle with him at bedtime. I love it too, but it's just not realistic to add an extra 10-15 minutes of snuggling each night. So, I told him we could snuggle on a weekend night each week. He holds me to that promise and asks almost every night which night is our snuggle night.

The elementary principal called me to give a "good news report" on Nash. It scared me at first when I heard her voice on the other end, but she assured me that she was calling because Nash's teacher had been really impressed with how much he was excelling in math and reading. It also "knocked her socks off" when Nash volunteered a well-thought out answer when she asked the class what the definition of equality was.

Nash has been really brave with sharing some of our religious beliefs with friends at school.

In general, the boys have been healthier this fall than they were last year. Finn usually only lasts two weeks in between sicknesses, but the older boys seem to be faring better. Nash has only missed one or two days of school which is amazing considering what last fall was like. That doesn't mean we don't still do breathing treatments galore for their asthma though. They are so used to having the masks on it doesn't even phase them anymore. Even Finn doesn't resist as much as he used to. We amp up the treatments via nebulizer at the first sign of a sniffle or cough to avoid trips to the hospital. When Nash and Crew are healthy, we switch over to maintenance with an inhaler which is so much quicker.

Our three month supply of medications for one child is daunting. Multiply those boxes by three and that's how much we go through. 

We have been in the habit of calling Crew and Finn "the babies" for so long. We're trying to switch over to calling them "the littles" since at ages three and two they really aren't babies anymore. But it's a tough habit to break.

It has been a long-time question amongst moms whether having a two-year-old or a three-year-old is harder. I'm here to report that it's the hardest when you have both. When you're not reasoning with one you're reasoning with the other and it seems like one of them is always having a tantrum about something or other. Or sometimes they are simultaneously having tantrums. Don't even get me started on the picky eating battles.

Sometimes Crew puts on his brothers' backpacks or headphones. He wants to be just like them. He is getting to the age where it's harder to leave him out of activities that are meant for the older boys. He just always wants to be a part of what they are doing.

Crew is the only one in our family who calls Blake "Blakey" and me "mommy" instead of mom. I love it.

Crew's nap is almost completely phased out. I still send him to his room for quiet time each afternoon, but it doesn't last long since he hears his older brothers get home from school at 2:30pm.

We waited until we were in a regular school routine to start potty training Crew. I had to laugh at the sticker chart I created for him to track his progress. I whipped out a piece of scrap paper, flipped it over and wrote "Crew Potty" on it. That's it. It was nothing like the elaborate poster board sized train chart I hand drew when we were going through the process with Blake. There were no prizes and half of the time we didn't even remember to add a sticker. Definitely third child syndrome. I wonder if child number four will even get a chart. But you know what? It did the trick.

Crew was pretty proud of that filled up chart.

Crew's favorite part of using the bathroom on his own is the handwashing. We bought him a little step stool and he spends 5-10 minutes lathering and rinsing his hands.

Crew's love for babies continues on. All of his preschool buddies gained a baby sister this year and he is often found oohing and ahhing over the babies instead of playing with his friends during free time at preschool. We laughed that he was "sister shopping" when all of the babies were lined up at a birthday party.

Which one, which one?

Crew dotes on his new baby cousin.

Crew and Finn often tap their sippy cups together at meals and say, "Cheers!" I have no idea where they got that from.

Crew and Finn can not get enough of the TV show Umizoomi. The characters in the show are robots who solve math problems having to do with shapes, patterns and counting. There are also gizmos that have switches that turn from "make clean" to "make mess" mode. They are great motivation because if I speak the words, "Make clean, make clean" to the boys in a robotic voice, they immediately dive in and start picking up toys.

When Finn gets mad, he roars at you like a lion.

We discovered that when we ask Finn to say the word "Ikea," he won't say it, but instead, he moves his jaw up and down repeatedly. The boys and I often have a good laugh at dinner requesting, "Finn, say Ikea!" over and over.

Finn calls firetrucks "woo-woo" based on the noise they make. If we happen to pass one, Finn excitedly exclaims, "I see a woo-woo!"

We gave Crew's hand me down nie-nights to Finn since Crew clung more to his binky as a baby than he did to loveys. We thought it was the greatest idea to have a couple of spares around the house in case we couldn't find one at bedtime. Little did we know, that just encouraged Finn to get attached to all three nie-nights. It's a little out of control how he insists on bringing them everywhere and he cries and cries if he doesn't have them all at bedtime.

I only sneak one nie-night away at a time to wash, but Finn always notices when he's down one. He cries and sits on the drier until the washer cycle is finished. When I hand the clean nie-night to him, he's so happy to be reunited that he doesn't even care that it's wet. It's rare that his nie-nights ever go in the dryer because he can't bear to be without them that long.

Finn loves wearing shoes. He often asks me to put them on him to wear around the house, even if we aren't going anywhere.

I started cutting the boys' hair myself. Four heads of hair every six weeks was getting expensive, so after watching a few tutorials, I took matters into my own hands. Sometimes they are cooperative and other times they act like they're being tortured. You never know what you're going to get.

We have an iPad and a couple of Kindle Fires for the kids to play games on, but I hide them during the week and only take them out on the weekends.

We can all go on bike rides together now thanks to a secondhand bike I bought for Troy and a bike cart for the littles. I have a beach cruiser with a little seat on the back for Finn as well, so sometimes Crew rides his balance bike and we're all on two wheels. We're looking forward to more daylight when we can go on walks or bike rides in the evenings again.

This probably deserves its own post, but Troy is really private about the fact that he's been on a major health kick this year. He started out doing several weeks of juicing and our garage refrigerator was filled to the brim with fruits and vegetables. At the beginning of the school year, he switched over to tracking macros and weighing all his food in addition to a hardcore workout plan. He prepares his meals for the entire week on Sunday afternoons. His self control is unreal. He has lost 60 pounds so far which is truly remarkable. 

I loved how colorful the fridge looked when he was juicing.

Troy's health awareness doesn't come without sacrifice. He spends two hours at the gym every day except Sunday, which means he usually gets home right when I'm getting the boys ready for bed. The days and especially the dinnertime hours can feel really long for me, alone with four boys. But we're making it work and we have already seen so many benefits from prioritizing Troy's health. We keep saying that we're in this together and we're planning a pretty epic trip next summer to celebrate both of our efforts.

I iron all of Troy's shirts for work and usually have a few items of my own thrown in there as well. I try to stay on top of it but sometimes I don't get to the ironing pile for a couple of weeks. I actually don't mind the task, especially because it's about the only time I turn on the one show I watch (This is Us) or catch up with my best friend on the phone. But the time is so hard to find. This was a particularly long ironing session; three weeks of piled up items. It had to be documented when I was finally finished.

Sometimes when I get really behind on laundry or ironing I beat myself up for not being more on top of it. I also can't stand the clutter. I had a breakdown the day after I returned home from the hospital with Finn because it was one of those times the baskets were still filled with unfolded laundry, five days after they had been washed. Troy told me, "Don't be so hard in yourself, we had a family emergency this week!" I laughed because it seems like we have a family emergency every week. If someone isn't the hospital, someone else is throwing up in his car seat, breaking his arm, smashing a lightbulb against the wall, spilling oil paint on floor, refusing to eat dinner, in need of extra breathing treatments, having potty accidents, flooding the bathroom with bath water or accidentally tangling the tassels of a blanket in the fan creating a fuzz massacre. There's never a dull moment.

While we're talking about disasters, let me share this text I sent to Troy and a few close friends:

I remembered today why I NEVER take all of the boys to Costco. Strangers stopped us in every. single. aisle. to ask, "Are those ALL yours?!" or "What is the age gap between them?" or my favorite, "You are SO lucky it's not four girls!" (while aiming a gun at her head). As if we weren't drawing enough attention to ourselves, all hell broke loose in the food court. Finn was chucking his shoes at strangers while climbing between sections of our overflowing shopping cart. A grandma was shooting me dirty looks while telling him to "sit down, honey." Once we finally got our food, Crew started screaming bloody murder because I wouldn't let him fill up the drinks. I gave Nash that job, who of course spilled soda all over the floor. While dealing with that disaster, Finn escaped, barefoot, and threw an epic tantrum as I attempted to scoop up and contain his squirmy body. Every pair of eyes was locked on us when I declared to my children that we were D.O.N.E. and going home. I threw their uneaten food back into the cart and booked it out of there with two screaming toddlers on my hips and Blake running into people left and right with our shopping cart. It was humiliating.

I feel like this would be a good time to mention that Troy still picks up fresh flowers for me for no reason a few times a month. 

Now that Crew is in preschool a couple of mornings a week, I usually plan my errands for when I only have one child in tow. As long as I have snacks packed, Finn is the best errand buddy. Our Costco trips go much smoother sans three additional brothers.

We go through two gallons of milk and one case of apples within a week. A Costco size container of grapes usually doesn't last more than five days and a bunch of bananas is gone is two days. That's with half of our boys not being great eaters. We are in trouble for when they get older!

In addition to being the Cubmaster, Troy also volunteers as the church building cleaning coordinator. Every three months, our congregation is in charge of cleaning the building each Saturday for the entire month. It starts at 7:30am and Troy always picks up donuts for those who come and serve. The boys love to go with him; it's the highlight of their week to wake up early on a Saturday, pick out donuts and help be in charge of the cleanings.

I still volunteer as the music leader for 120 children ages 3-11 on Sundays. It is a demanding responsibility requiring a lot of prep work, but I'm getting more comfortable in front of the kids and other leaders. And the icing on the cake is when I can convince my husband to dress up as a scripture hero and he goes to the store and puts together his own costume for the part.

I go baby showers twice a month on average. It's inevitable in a town full of young families. From February to June, I went to nine baby showers, all for girls. At least I'm making my mark in the girls' side of clothing stores.

In addition to baby showers, it seems like it is always time to celebrate the birthday of one of my friends. We usually go to dinner but sometimes we switch it up with a trip to the beach or go all out for a girls' weekend. Add in our weekly viewings of The Bachelor or The Bachelorette and the calendar fills up quickly with social events. I really value my female interactions; especially living with a house full of boys. Even though Troy is home less than ever, he makes sure that I go to girls' nights on a regular basis.

When we have company visit us, which was often this fall, the boys all shift rooms to accommodate our guests. Nash regularly sleeps in the queen-sized guest bed, so when we have visitors, we move him to an extra twin-sized mattress on Blake's bedroom floor. Crew shares a room with his grandparents when they are here, but if friends are visiting, we stick his toddler mattress up in our master loft. And if we have a family of six staying with us, we move all of our boys to our room and spread them out between our closet, floor and loft. We love sharing our beautiful surroundings with visitors and even though we're in a small 3-bedroom home, we make it work.

We have limited storage so I go through and purge our closets and drawers every few months.  I actually love that we don't have the room to store extra "stuff." I'm a purger by nature, but I like that it is a necessity for me to stay on top of my game without a storage room as a crutch. It is freeing to have less stuff and it sure accumulates quickly with six people under one roof.

I stock up on Grandma Sycamore's white bread whenever I'm in Nevada, Utah or Arizona, and if we have visitors from those states, my only request is that they bring me a dozen or so loaves. I freeze them and ration one loaf per week, mostly for my morning peanut butter toast. When I have excess on hand I'm more willing to share with the boys. Trust me, I've tried all of the California breads and nothing even comes close to comparing.

I still try to fit in design work whenever I can. It's never as much as I would like, but a little coding and designing here and there helps keeps me sharp. 

Troy can't go to sleep at night without reading first. He usually lays on his back, holding his Kindle in the air above him. Without fail, that Kindle almost always falls on his face when he starts to doze off.

That's life 2016 in a nutshell. Some days we feel like we're barely surviving and others we feel like we're thriving. Some days feel heavy and other days we are overwhelmed with gratitude for the blessings in our little family.

Snapshot 2013

I'm cutting it close for squeezing in our annual fall snapshot, but the week of Thanksgiving still counts as fall, right?

Without further ado, here is our 2013 snapshot in words (and a few pictures), capturing the here and now.

The most prominent change in our lives is Troy's work schedule. He transferred to Foreign Exchange (or FX) in September when his previous function was moved back to the New York office. The new role has subsequently resulted in drastically longer hours and more stress. For both of us. Troy used to be home for dinner in the evenings (after working 11 hour days), and now he works 13-14 hour days and is lucky to see the boys at all.

Add in being in the Bishopric at church and we really never see him.

While Troy peacefully sits on the stand at church each Sunday, the 70 minutes that I sit on the bench alone with three restless boys are the hardest of my week. The three year old is especially challenging. I had an older widow come up to me a few weeks ago and tell me, "You struggle with those boys every single week." I didn't quite know what to make of that observation. She was right, of course, but it made me feel worse that people were noticing the chaos.

I'm always relieved to send the boys off to Primary after the Sacrament meeting battle. I call it a success on the weeks that I don't bolt into the mother's room with tears streaming down my cheeks.

I am entering my fourth year as the Primary secretary.

I still really love my job. Working on designs and coding them for the web is what I love to do most in my spare time. But spare time is becoming less and less, which means I often stay up very late to work when the house is finally quiet. And I usually fall asleep on the couch with my laptop.

Troy was diagnosed with whooping cough a few weeks ago. He has literally had a cough for 6 weeks straight. We're thankful the rest of us are immunized.

Troy is addicted to buying Groupons. Sometimes this hobby lands us fun things like bounce houses or his jet pack trip, but a lot of times we end up with with restaurant Groupons that expire before we get to using them. I wish had a nickel for every time Troy shouted from the next room, "Hey, I found this Groupon..."

I procrastinate grocery shopping to no end. And the dinner hour. Especially now that Troy is rarely home, there's no point to make anything fancy.

Because of my total dismay for meal planning, Troy signed us up for an eMeals membership (thanks to a Groupon). We chose a meal plan based on our eating style and favorite grocery store. A new meal plan is emailed to us every week with seven dinner recipes. The coordinating app includes an itemized shopping list that I can check off when I go to the store. It has been working pretty well, except I usually omit anything that includes seafood or mayonnaise. Some meals have been great and some just so-so.

Troy often buys me flowers for no reason. It is very sweet.

Cuff links in dress shirts are Troy's kryptonite. He is acquiring quite the collection.

Troy also loves his Kindle. I have observed him turning the pages by tapping his nose to the screen on several occasions. This is hilarious to me.

Troy subscribes to two magazines; ESPN and Forbes. He says he will continue these subscriptions for the rest of his life.

Troy is a wealth of random information. For example:

• Why are there two free throw lines on the basketball court? Ask Troy.
• What was WWI all about again? Ask Troy.
• When are the various hunting seasons? Ask Troy (who has never hunted in his life).
• How much did we pay for a certain piece of furniture 5 years ago? Ask Troy. He never forgets how much we spent on things.
• What is going on in politics? Ask Troy.
• What is going on in sports? Ask Troy. He knows all about even the obscure sports.
• Where did the term "knock on wood" come from? Ask Troy.

A highlight of each month for me is going to book club. The book discussion usually lasts about 10 minutes and the other 5 or 6 hours are spent laughing and discussing every topic imaginable. A friend of mine that recently hosted ended her invitation email by joking, "I'll have more details (such as time, food, wardrobe assignments, playlists to listen to on the drive over, synchronized parking, who will be performing which talent, etc.) as it gets closer." Oh man I love these gals.

Anytime I see something rustle or move out of the corner of my eye, I immediately assume it's a mouse. I spent an entire drive home from dropping off our sitter thinking there was a mouse on the passenger seat floor of my car. I was freaking out, curled up on my side of the car. It turned out to be a water bottle rolling around. I can't help it though. My default explanation for unusual movement is always; "mouse."

I only get the mail once a week. Or less. I can't stand the cluttered mess it brings in, so I prefer to leave it in our locked mailbox until it becomes absolutely necessary to sort through. The only exception is during the month of December, when I love walking to the mailbox every day to see what Christmas cards await.

Speaking of December approaching, I'm trying to figure out how to boycott the whole "Elf on the Shelf" craze. I don't know what I was thinking starting that up last year. Blake asked me if our elf was coming back this year and I responded, "No, I don't think so." The problem is, all of the boys' friends have elves that visit their houses. And they hear all about the funny and mischievous things those elves do.

I have a serious sweet tooth. No meal is complete without a little treat at the end. I try to hide my treats so the boys won't find them, but they always do. Even when I hide them in the battery box on the very top shelf.

People ask me all. the. time. if we're going to try to have a girl. My response is, "We did. Three times."

My weekly chore routine consists of 5-6 loads of laundry on Monday, grocery shopping on Tuesday while the older boys are at school, and cleaning on Friday. It's actually harder to stick to than it sounds with everything else swirling around. But the weeks run much smoother when I stay on schedule.

I have to sweep the floor every single day. And I probably should sweep multiple times a day. For some reason, this really surprises me.

We switched over to mostly digital formats of movies. We rarely buy DVDs anymore. Oh how I love technology that eliminates clutter.

Blake is thriving in Kindergarten. Helping him learn to read is kind of magical.

Blake has two best buddies that he asked to be his friends from the beginning. We get together with the boys and their moms every few weeks. They both happen to have a three year old younger brother and were born the same week as Blake. Now those are some friendships that were meant to be. Except celebrating birthdays during the first week of December just got a little crazier.

Blake and I have "Mommy time" every day when Nash goes down for a nap. We usually read together, but sometimes we throw in other activities like building machines, playing board games, building with LEGO bricks and playing "Don't Eat Pete" with sight words. Blake also discovered that if he offers to play with my hair (which usually includes an interesting assortment of headbands and hair clips), Mommy time can be very prolonged.

His first question on the ride home from school each day is, "What are we going to do for Mommy time today?" This child of mine sure craves one-on-one attention, and even though I usually have a thousand other things that need to get done, I'm really glad that he holds me to having Mommy time everyday.

Blake's favorite thing to do is still to build intricate machines out of anything and everything. He has recently added life-size maze building to his repertoire.

Blake also still wants to be an elf when he grows up. His reasoning is that elves build machines. Our Bishop asked him at tithing settlement if he was going to go on a mission when he grew up. He responded, "Yes. And then I'm going to move to the North Pole to be an elf."

Blake will not drink juice or soda. Nash, however, begs for Sprite everywhere we go.

When I go through the clothes from Blake's closet that are getting too small, I move them right into Nash's closet. There is no longer a need for packing the clothes away in an interim bin until Nash grows into them.

Nash started naming his beloved stuffed animals. He now lovingly refers to his nie-night as "Angwood," and his Pluto as "Woofie."

Nash is all boy. My vow to never have any sort of play weapons in the house backfired when he turned every toy imaginable into a gun or a sword. I finally gave in to his puppy-dog eyes at Disneyland when he wanted to spend his hard earned Disney Dollars on a toy gun. It is, by far, his favorite toy.

(Yes, his pants are on backwards.)

Nash literally runs through the house all day making shooting and fighting noises. "Pssshhh, pssshhh..." is all I hear from him. I really don't know what to do with boys, ha!

Nash tries to "fight" any big kid he comes across. It doesn't matter where we are - the school carnival, in line at Disneyland, Troy's Halloween work party... If he sees boys that are twice his size, he immediately assumes they want to fight and starts swinging his arms.

For how rough Nash is inclined to be, he is also my biggest cuddler.

Nash is a serious hoarder. I find random collections of things in every receptacle I come across. He must not have my minimalist genes.

We had our first run-in with a time out at preschool. Nash felt terrible about not listening to his teacher after the fact. He wrote her an apology note.

The boys have aversions to anything "girly." They won't come near dolls, barbies, fairies, or anything that is pink in general. Troy is happy that they came to this conclusion by themselves.

Recently, as I tucked Nash into bed, we talked about the friends he was going to play with in the upcoming days. He responded in a perplexed voice, "Mom, Bella's a girl but I don't want to marry her. I just want to marry you." Then, a minute later, he asked, "Wait, are you already married?"

Potty training continues to be a touchy subject in our home. We finally took Blake to a urologist after 3+ years of multiple accidents a day. He started a medication that will help his bladder regulate. I also have to remind him to use the bathroom every hour and a half for twelve months. Yes, that's right. I have an alarm that is set to go off on my phone all day, every day, for the next year. Since Nash is now in the dreaded potty training phase too - we all take a bathroom break every hour and a half. Oh, the joys.

And then there's our sweet baby Crew. I finally started leaving him with sitters now that he is more on a schedule. It is fun for Troy and I to go on dates alone, but not as fun for me to have to sit in the car and pump while we're out.

Blake and Nash just adore Crew. They are his biggest cheerleaders when he learns new skills.

My challenge with Crew, if I can even consider this a challenge, is keeping him awake in the car while I'm driving the older boys back and forth from school. If he catnaps in the car instead of deep sleeping in his crib, our whole day is thrown off. My attempts to put Crew on a regimented schedule like I did with the other two are constantly thwarted. Such is life with school aged children and a baby.

Crew has three favorite things. First is his binky. He'll only take the type they give newborns at the hospital. The pacifier thing is a whole new ballgame for us since we're accustomed to thumb suckers.

Next is cords. He has an obsession with and radar for any type of cord. I'm convinced he learned to scoot around just so he could acquire cords.

And finally, Crew loves his exersaucer. I don't know how many times he's been in there for extended periods of time while we eat, cook, clean, do homework, clean some more, etc. He remains happy as can be in his confined corner of the kitchen while the chaos of the rest of us swirls around him.

And that is life in 2013 in a nutshell. We certainly have our challenges, but we are reminded of how blessed we are. As we head into Thanksgiving and the end of 2013, we are grateful most of all for our health, stability and family. And for all the little moments that bring us joy each and every day.