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! 

It's a GIRL!!!!!

Ailey Jessa Somers is HERE!!!

Thank goodness because my belly was HUGE!!!!

Skipping over loads of important recent events to bring you news of our new addition! This is Ailey Jessa Somers. Her first name is pronounced like Riley without the R; eye-lee. Her middle name is a combination of my brother Jesse and Brice's sister Melissa's names.

This little girl decided to wait all the way until her due date to be born, which is weird for us since the other kids were born 7, 10, 2, and 10 days early, respectively. But we are sure glad she did because now she shares her birthday with her daddy which we think is just awesome! She was born at home (love home birth!) on February 22, 2012 (2/22/12; cool birth date, no?) at 10:45 pm. She weighed 8 lbs 4 oz and was 21.5 inches long. She has the cutest round head--no molding at all, probably because she was posterior (facing my front instead of my back like babies normally do) until delivery.

I suppose I should start at the beginning. I'd spent a lot of time and effort with this pregnancy trying to picture it and how I wanted it to go. I even wrote out the entire experience ahead of time as I'd been seeing it in my head. My visualization pretty much nailed it except for the date. I was only off on the time by about 20 minutes (I guessed 11:05 and she was born at 10:45)! Anyway, I wanted to have the kind of labor where you have plenty of strong contractions in the week(s) leading up to the birth so that the actual labor itself would be super fast. So over the course of the last two weeks or so, my contractions had been getting steadily stronger and I'd had a few instances where I thought we might be getting somewhere only to have them peter out. I had one day of doubt where I was worried that the baby was stuck in a posterior position and couldn't get down into the birth canal (I knew her head wasn't engaged at all). But aside from that day, I was able to be really patient and relaxed about it. During this time, Brice got a job offer (YAAAAAYYYYY!!!!!) with a firm in Arizona. They want him to start on March 5th. That gave us 2 weeks to have a baby, pack our house, find a new house, and move. Kinda nuts, huh!! So with every day that went by without a baby, I was feeling a little more pressure to have the birth DONE so that we could move on to the next thing!

On Brice's birthday I had a prenatal appointment and I told my midwife that I couldn't even reach my cervix to check my progress because it was too far back. She asked if I wanted her to pull it forward. Though I'm typically anti-intervention, this one seemed super minor and appropriate given the circumstance. So she did and the contractions that I'd been having that morning that had petered out during the day returned. At about 7:20, after Brice's birthday dinner, presents, and singing "Happy Birthday" (I didn't even stick around for cake), I escaped to my room because, though my contractions weren't super intense or anything, I had a kind of mood shift and I wanted to just be alone. I turned on a Hypnobabies track and just relaxed for a while. When Brice came up after getting the kids to bed, I was pretty sure we were getting close. I still wasn't sure whether or not we were close enough to have the baby before midnight so the baby and Brice would have the same birthday since contractions had fizzled out so many times, but things were certainly more intense. At around 9:00, I checked my progress and guessed I was dilated to about a 5 or 6. Brice checked too and guessed 8. So we called my midwife and she said she'd pack up and be on her way and said she was probably an hour out. I chuckled, thinking she might not make it! Then I told Brice I wanted to go for a short walk.

He looked at me like I was crazy (I am). But I really didn't want to lose the progress! I wanted to have this baby NOW and not drag this out any longer! And we'd been hoping all day that she would be born on Brice's birthday. So we walked to the end of the block and back. I think I had three or four contractions on the way, during which I waddled more and just focused on breathing. Brice just looked at me and said, "See, that's why people don't think you're in labor!" I said, "What, cuz I keep walking? Isn't the breathing part a dead giveaway?" He said, "Yeah, for a normal woman dilated to a 2 or 3!" Okay, so I'm weird. But I think that pain tolerance is part of what makes it possible for me to birth unmedicated and at home, so I'll take weird!!! We got back home and things just kept progressing. We kept the lights really low and had candles burning and it was a really nice peaceful atmosphere.

I've been taking a pretty "out there" childbirth class that I love and we've talked a lot about what a difference it makes to the baby to be born without the assaulting lights and energy and suctioning and scrubbing that is so commonplace in American birthing today and I wanted to see how much of a difference it really makes. It sure made labor nicer and this baby has been SO peaceful! I didn't really hear her cry until the next day because her birth was such a gentle transition, I think. But I'm getting ahead of myself. So the first person there was the other apprentice who works with my midwife (I've been apprenticing with her for the last 6 months or so. At this point, since I took time off at the end of my own pregnancy, I'd say that this other apprentice has now seen more births than me even though I started a little before her) and she took a few minutes to just quietly watch and assess where I was at, then she started getting the things ready that I hadn't already had Brice do. I'd gotten him started setting up the room because I wasn't sure whether the midwife would make it in time. But she did! She came over and asked how I was doing and I said things were moving along and that I guessed I probably had a bulging bag of waters and was close to complete. She literally did the happy dance and said, "I LOVE these kinds of births!!" She asked if I thought there was time to set up the birth tub and I said probably not. She checked me and said I was right on with my guess; that I had maybe a bit of a rim of cervix left and that the bag was bulging. I was having more trouble controlling my contractions and pain level than I had with Landon and, while I obviously didn't have time to dwell on that, I was kind of frustrated by it. But I think that it was partly because of the baby's position which was giving me some back labor. A few minutes later I felt like things were really getting close and I wanted to be where I would birth the baby.

I really, really wanted to birth this baby in a true squatting position so I tried that and found it to be just too difficult. We don't live in a culture anymore where squatting is a normal part of life so our muscles aren't toned to hold that position for long. Especially when you weigh 25 to 35 lbs more than your usual weight. I was a little bummed about that, but consented to the birthing stool (a horseshoe-shaped low chair that supports your thighs but is open through the middle to let the baby be born). As soon as I was on it, my body was able to focus on birthing rather than maintaining that squatting position. I immediately felt the urge to push! Yes! I hate the labor contractions, but pushing is such a relief! No more pain, no more strict self-control! Just go for it! The first push broke the bag of water, the second brought the baby's head, and the third brought her body! Ailey was here!! Somewhere in there, she also turned herself around and was born in the normal anterior position, facing my back. I'd written that down as part of my birth visualization too. My midwife guided her to the floor and I picked her up (I'd wanted to catch her myself, but I couldn't hold my body in the position I needed for leverage for pushing and have my hands free to catch her, so my midwife just cushioned her mini fall to the floor and let me take it from there). I had made a flannel blanket to use to dry her off (softer than a terry towel) and I made another one of fleece to wrap her in afterwards to keep her warm and snuggly. I dried her off and helped her clear her lungs but she was already nice and pink and doing well! A minute or two later the placenta was born and we moved to the bed. Ailey wanted to nurse RIGHT AWAY! Our other kids weren't too interested for the first half hour but this little one LOVES to nurse! Ailey really didn't cry at all; a few little whimpers right after she was born and then nothing until early the next morning. I think that creating a peaceful atmosphere for her to be born into and not scrubbing or suctioning her really helped her to be born happy. It was kinda nice! She's been really peaceful since.

The midwives cleaned up, checked baby, and checked the placenta (yeah, this is totally interesting to me--I'm a nerd) which had the most amazing, thick veins on it. I think I might just have to post a picture. Sorry if it grosses you out, but I think it's fascinating! Scroll fast if you don't want to see it! :)

So, the midwives got there around 10:15, Ailey was born at 10:45 and they left shortly after midnight. My labor, start to finish, was about 3 hours just like I'd wanted/visualized it being! I like short labors!

Ailey has been a doll! Her siblings love her (oh yeah, Raelin and Ryker wanted to be woken up for the birth, so there were both there for the last 10 minutes or so before Ailey was born. Alaina had said she didn't want to get woken up but Brice went in and asked her anyway and she said no, she wanted to sleep. Funny little thing!).

She has a little bit of hair, not much. She has a cute little face and a perfect round head. She sleeps most of the time and eats for a half hour to forty five minutes at a time (way more than any of our other kids). She's really peaceful and sweet and soft! Feel free to come meet her if you want to! She's darling!

And now, with no time to rest, on to the next of life's objectives: moving to Arizona!!

Fall

Yeah, pathetic, I know. It's been how long since I posted? Eh, well, you'll have to take what you can get! I'll do a short recap of the highlights to get you caught up to speed. This fall, we did homeschool with Raelin and it went pretty well! We met our goals and accomplished some great things, but it's a dang lot of work for me and it's hard on the babies because we have to try to cram all our errands into one day which makes for hungry, tired kids and they don't get the attention they need because I'm trying to keep Raelin stocked with projects and tasks for so much of the day. It's just too busy. Plus we'd only planned to do it for a semester anyway. So Raelin went back to public school at the beginning of the new year and it has been great! She seems to be enjoying it just fine and it sure makes my life easier!! Ultimately, I wish I could afford private school and get them a better education that way, but meanwhile, homeschool, to me, is the way to accomplish that. But my sanity is paramount. So public school it is.

Also, with fall comes the pumpkin patch! The kids love the pumpkin patch (Alaina still asks about it on a biweekly basis) and the one by our house does more and more cool FREE stuff every year. This year they had some awesome mazes and hay mountains to climb, which, if you know my kids, they LOVE!

They also had a corn pit that was loads of fun for the littles.

And we went on a hay ride around the farms.

The kids had a blast! Except for Landon when he went to eat the corn and I quickly, but not TOO roughly brushed it out of his hands. But, I mean, EW! And I'm so not a germaphobe, but last year we went kinda late in the year and it was all fermented and stinky and there are SO many people who climb all over in there and just ew. So I didn't want him to eat it and I think I startled him. This was his response:

So sad! I broke his poor little baby heart! Awwwwwwww. And yes, I took pictures of it. I'm so mean.

We went on some cool hikes (love the fall colors--I think that's the best thing there is about Utah!)

and climbed all the trees the kids could find (have I mentioned that they love to climb trees?)

For Halloween we carved our pumpkins (Brice's turned out particularly cool--it's the puking cowboy one)

and went trunk or treating and trick or treating. LOTS of candy!! Raelin was a lizard, Ryker was Batman, Alaina was a monkey, and Landon was a banana. I was particularly proud of Landon's banana costume. I made it from scratch and I loved how it turned out!

Alaina got this awesome fat lip when she landed face first taking a tumble off a chair. Clearly, it didn't slow her down.

Raelin had a birthday and turned 8! Her baptism was awesome but I'll do a separate post for that.

For her birthday, she got some great books (she's an avid reader)

and her own sewing machine! She's been taking a sewing class and making lots of cool stuff so we thought it would be cool for her to have her own machine so she didn't always have to compete with me for mine.

We played outside as much as we could in the awesomely unseasonably warm weather, which I love.

Look at this little cute guy! I love that face!

Winter has just finally hit us in the last week or so with our first real snowfalls and freezingness. I'm hoping it goes back to spring rains and warmth again soon because I was really enjoying that! I'm not a winter person, in case you didn't already know that. HATE winter. Though I do feel bad for the kids when they're hoping for snow to play in and don't get any. I just wish there was such a thing as warm snow...