It's been a while...

Okay, folks, get ready for some pictures!! Sorry it's been so long. Five kids is proving to be a serious challenge for me. Not sure I'm going to survive this. But I'm just trying to take it one day at a time (sometimes one minute at a time) and not kill myself or anyone else. Easier said than done. The kids are amazing and wonderful, but it's just a lot of little people to manage. And A LOT of mess. I hate mess. And I hate dishes. In a family of 7, there are just way too many dishes. I've actually kind of gotten over my loathing of laundry and it's not so bad since I wash each person's clothes separately from everyone else's so I don't have to do ANY sorting. That makes it doable for me!

Anyway, on to the good stuff. There are more than 40 pictures in this post, so forgive me if they are out of order.

Winding up for a sneeze. Love baby sneezes!!

 

 I know it's been a long time since I've done a decent job of keeping up with my blog (see first paragraph), but we've sure been busy! So I'll give highlights and funny quotes (Alaina's hilarious) as I go along, but I'll be leaving lots of stuff out. Sorry...

 The biggest thing of late (besides welcoming Ailey into our family, but I already posted about that) is that Brice finished his Master's degree and got a job as a project manager for a civil engineering company in Tempe, Arizona. He gets paid to play with dirt. Weird job. But I'm not kidding. He spent all of Friday and part of Thursday last week pouring water in holes for a couple of hours and then filling the holes back in after taking measurements. And he loves it, blisters and all!!

 So we had a whirlwind of a move since he got the job offer just a few weeks before Ailey was born and we had to wait for her arrival to do any house-hunting. By then we only had a week and a half before Brice started his job. It ended up taking three weeks of Brice being out in AZ by himself before he secured us a house and we were able to move. That was a crazy 3 weeks!! We haven't been away from each other for more than a night or two since we started dating! Three weeks was HARD! But I have amazing friends, family, and neighbors and they all pulled together to help me get my house packed, take care of my other little ones, and keep my sane. I miss them terribly!!! And they will never know just how wonderful they all are and how much of a difference they made in my life. Through them, I truly felt not only their love, but also the love of God and I gained an even stronger testimony of His awareness of little ol' me and my personal trials and struggles. He truly takes care of His children. A HUGE thank you to all of you who listen to His promptings and have been an instrument in His hands on my behalf! You don't know how much you have touched my life.

I love this little hat I made for her!! Too bad she doesn't need it here in Phoenix... ;)

Yawn!

I don't know what it is about pouty baby faces, but I LOVE THEM!

This girl does CRAZY things with her eyes when she's sleeping. This picture is a mild depiction. I was worried the other pic I have would scare you.

Landon fell asleep standing on the floor with his head under a pillow. Definitely his father's son.

See! I told ya! Ha! I didn't even plan the order of those two pictures! I wrote the caption on Landon's then scrolled down to find this one! HAHAHA!

So we've moved into a new house in south Phoenix. I LOVE the house! It's gorgeous and HUGE and so nice. It's just kind of in the ghetto. Lock your doors, don't let your kids play out front without you, and one of my neighbors witnessed some guy firing a gun outside of a gas station last week. Doesn't look like he hit anyone, but still. Crazy. We won't be here long. A year or so. It took me hours and hours to decide what to do about school for the kids. I did tons of research, tons of paperwork, and tons of praying. While I'm not super impressed by the school I ended up choosing, I'm not disappointed either. I think they are great at academics but they're kind of lacking in the nurturing department. I just don't see a lot of smiles. But my kids seem to be doing well enough, so we'll tough it out for a year or so. We love our ward and neighbors and we have a neighborhood pool that we finally got keys to the other day. Yessssss! Brice also got called to be the ward mission leader. That's quite the job here in not-Utah. People are kind of scaring me about how hefty of a job it's going to be! But I know that Brice loves missionary work and I am excited to be a part of that.

We were taking pictures of each other taking pictures and she just thought it was the funniest thing ever! I love this face!

I've been trying to keep myself busy and involved so I don't mope too much (I really miss my family and my old neighborhood and having five kids is really hard) so I've been enjoying playing volleyball with some ladies from church on Mondays and going to playgroup with moms and kids from my ward on Thursdays. I really like the people here! There happen to be a lot of other cloth-diapering moms and natural birthing moms and essential oil-using moms and stuff like that. I've been pleasantly surprised and I've enjoyed getting to know them and chatting about common interests.

Ailey's cute baby swimsuit from Tia. Love it!

This is the essence of Landon. I had to post something to document his constant finger-sucking (he gets FOUR fingers in there!) and belly button poking. It's either that or he has his hand down his diaper. Who knew it started so young. Ew.

This girl is nothing but smiles! I adore her. She just the sweetest, cutest little thing! Her cheeks are starting to chunk up more and I keep waiting for the rest of her to follow. 

We made a laser obstacle course with yarn and the kids had a great time cartwheeling through the maze.

Ailey is super strong. We thought she would be because she was wigglier than even Alaina was and she was WIGGLY! She was also our overachiever in the physical milestones department. It will be exciting to see what Ailey does! In this picture, she's sitting on her own! She can't balance yet, of course, but she is strong enough at 2.5 months to hold herself up.

I posted this picture for the view it gives of the house. I'm sitting on the couch to take this picture of the upstairs. I love how open this house is!

 I have to post Alaina's funny -isms. This girl is a riot!! A lot of these (probably all of them) I've posted on facebook, but I know that a lot of you guys aren't on facebook so for those of you who are, sorry for the repetition. But here's one none of you have heard because she just said it right now. She wants to call Granddad on the phone and I'm asking her to wait until I'm done with this post so I can talk to him too. She said, "This is eediclius!" (ridiculous) Love her!

So most of these I'm just going to copy and paste from facebook:

"Lookit I got!!! I'n so LUCKY!" says Alaina. What is she so lucky to have? A BUG, of course!

This one's not an Alaina-ism but it's one of those things I want documented so I can think "Awww! I love my kids!"

Alaina asked if I would read her a book. Before I could answer, Ryker said, "I'll read it to you!" That's my sweet Ryker I know and love! I love it when my kids are loving and kind to one another!! It's the best!

And this one is from Landon who is just starting to talk and string words together, which is just so fun!

Little Landon is standing at the door YELLING, "Maaaaaamay (mommy)!! Fun! Go! Pay (play)! Soccuhball (soccer ball)!" And now he's crying because we told him we're not going tonight. We've been playing soccer in the field across the street with some neighbors several times a week lately. I guess Landon thinks it's about time to hit the field again. Cute guy.

Here's one of my recent favorites:

Me to Alaina: "Yeah, buddy! That's the way to do it!"

Alaina: "I not a buddy!"

Me: "Oh, sorry. Yeah, princess! That's the way to do it!"

Alaina, thinks for a second: "Yeah, that what I am."

This cracks me up:

Raelin and Alaina are fighting over who gets to have Landon help them clean their room. "He's MINE!" "NO! I need him!" "Give him BACK!" As if he's a speck of help anyway! Ha! Kids will fight over anything!

Another one from cutie-pie Alaina:

Alaina: "I sang 'Heavenly Father Knows Me.'"

Me: "Cool! He DOES know you, huh!"

Alaina: "Yeah!"

Me: "Does He know your name?"

Alaina: "Yes."

Me: "Does He know your favorite color?"

Alaina: "Yes."

Me: "Does He know what color your eyes are?"

Alaina: "Yup, they're basil." 

That means hazel. She used to say they were pink. I love that girl.

Me: "That was a lot of sneezes!"

Alaina: "Yeah, I tooted at the same time."

This one just blew me away! What a kid!

Today at the store, Alaina asked, "Mommy, can we get THIS!?" (Lucky Charms) I said, "Only if you can promise to eat ALL the cereal and not just the marshmallows." She straight up PUT THEM BACK!!! Hahahaha!

I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones I could find on facebook. I've got to keep a notebook in my back pocket so I can write these sort of things down more! Kids are hilarious!

Landon loves his baby sister. It's been a rough transition for him, but he sure thinks she's great! He loves to give her kisses and pet her head. And his hair is getting long and curly again. Yessss! It's not as curly as it was, but I still love it long.

Landon loves to be a monster. Sometimes he puts a blanket on his head and is a blanket monster. This day, the littles found colanders and used those as their monster masks. Love them!

She just cracks me up!!!! Bahahahaha!

One morning we were out for a walk and we rousted up a pair of burrowing owls from their home in a little culvert. I've only seen a few owls in my life (in the wild anyway) and these two were SO close to us! Later that day, I saw this roadrunner on our back fence! Got a picture of that guy!!

Love the lips in this one

Buddies. Gotta love Raelin's mouse beanie in Phoenix! Girl's got some dimples too!!  And again, Landon with the mouth full of fingers.

Nice hat, Mr. Dude.

Alaina gave Ailey a smooshy face.

She's such a smiley girl! I love making her smile and I wish I could get her to laugh like the kids can. She has a darling laugh.

Alaina loves to hold her but she's a bit too... exuberant sometimes so I have to keep an eye on her.

 Well, we're mostly just trying to adjust to our new normal and I'm trying my best to follow all the old ladies' advice to enjoy my kids while they are so little and cute. And they sure are cute, but they are also a LOT of WORK! Whew!