signs of life

sore feet. that is a big complaint of mine these days. i feel like i am always standing up.
a sign of life being lived.


achy neck and tired eyes...signs that some of my sweet blessings still don't sleep through the night.

life being lived ...one moment at a time.


it was our last week of school (a sign that life is going by quite quickly!)

it was also our first week of April.

doesn't make sense you say??

well...here is a picture.

this is April...the newest(daytime!!) member of our family. i am blessed to be the full time nanny of our neighbor's tiny little baby girl. She is almost 3 months old and very sweet.

elia mostly loves having her around and even shares her beloved pouch. she has confiscated her pacifier though. with FIVE kids to manage i am loving having selah...she is a huge help...i may need to give her a cut of my pay!


along with being a nanny, i've had to be a nurse lately too. samuel needed a tiny piece of glass removed from his eye last week (i bribed him with a cool new toy while his doctor daddy used tweezers to get it out!


then i was called upon to ease the pain of a wretched bee sting to the bottom of miguel's foot. i asked him to make a face expressing how he felt about the whole thing...pretty accurate. i wish i could share the horrid screechy sounds he was making as well.




less than 24 hours later his foot had become completely infected and he had a pretty bad fever. doctor daddy saved the day again and got him on abx. to attack the infection. (med school loans not withstanding, having a MD in the house is pretty darn handy!)







i am happy to report his foot is getting better and he walks nearly normally again.

still no shoes...some things never change, even after getting stung by a bee!




nurse, nanny, tired-footed momma...oh, and tooth fairy...that is my other new job (doesn't pay well...in fact i seem to be out a few quarters!). selah lost two teeth in two days...right as school was ending this week. she and samuel worked long and hard, using dental floss, to try and tug them out.



some days are so difficult to manage through and others are pure joy.

but all are wonderful signs of life...signs of a huge God that bends way down low to love us.

His is a deep, strong love that sustains us...and so i rejoice at these things...these signs of my life.

frugle-ness

FRUGLE-NESS...is that a word? well...if it is, then i am the queen of it!

case in point:

last night, i cooked a favorite meal around our house...chicken pot pie. super easy, super yummy, quite healthy.

after serving up all the little hungry blessings quietly seated around the dinner table (don't all of your kids peacefully wait while you serve them a meal...no bickering, no hitting, no screaming for food!? ours sure do!) i plated up the most perfect piece of chicken pot pie you have ever seen (seriously!) and began to drool as i considered how great it was going to taste.

Ahhh..."pride comes before the fall"!!

so focused on how great i had done at creating our meal, i failed to notice the slipping plate from my hand as i brought it to the edge of the counter. no sooner had i picked up the plate, did i drop it! in an effort to "save" the drop, i threw my thigh into the counter, and the plate (and pie!!!) slid down my jeans and splatted on the floor! (of course face down!!!)

i squealed and without even giving it a second thought, i bent down and began scrapping (literally) my burning hot, perfectly browned chickenpot pie off my wood kitchen floor and back onto my plate!


when i arrived at the table, my oldest asked what in the world had happened to my chicken pot pie??!! after telling her, she quipped, "why don't you get a new piece?"


are you kidding!? waste a perfectly good piece of pie that just splatted on the floor??? oh no, not me!

i enjoyed every bite! pictured is our oldest's yummy pie, and then...mine!)

in case this was a horribly borning post, i included some really cute pics of our number 4!

pinch those pennies!!
cc

family bed

nearly 7 years ago (where have the days gone??) with the birth of our first blessing, selah, dan and i began sharing our bed with our babies.


since that late september day when she was born, we have had someone(at times a few someones!) sharing our sleeping space...every night!



as of May 7th (a bitter sweet mother's day surprise) our most recent blessing, elia, moved into her very own bed, sharing a room and bunk bed with her big sister!



yesterday as we were getting ready for school, our "many rich blessings" began filling up our bed, one by one, as i was trying to make it.



the moment brought back memories of many space limiting nights...cozily wrapped around some tiny heat producing bundle. i just had to take these fotos of them smooshed together on dan's body pillow.



i so miss those days, in ways...



of course, getting to wrap myself around dan as i drift off to sleep has been pretty great too!



one day i will be sharing fotos and writing about how i finally get to sleep through the night without being awoken by one of our "many rich blessings"(will we still blog by then??). until then, i will simply relish fighting only one person for the covers!


enjoy. ;)

OCD

see???... i do allow messes at my house!












it has become apparent to me (according to my kids) that i am basically against messes.

ok...i LOVE cleanliness!

i dread any type of sticky, goey, glumpy, wet, dirt filled craft that my kids want to enjoy!

in fact, none of the first three of my children were ever allowed to feed themselves until at least age 2...simply because they were so messy! (imagine that!)

so, of late, as i continue my sloooow walk down the path of "less of me and more of HIM" i have been "graciously" encouraging my kids to paint(even with their fingers!!!!), squish playdough, make mud pies, and yes people, even feed themselves. (is that yogurt??)!!!!!!!!

phew! it has been painful at times...but thanks to some valum(how do you spell that drug name??) and baby wipes from Costco (joking about the first, loving the second!!) all is well around our little cortez6 pad.

some(my kids) would even say life has gotten "way more fun"!

little children are amazing magnifying glasses...bringing to the front, in a bold big way, all that needs changing in a heart.

perhaps this is some of why God blessed me with four precious children.