brain matter

it's after 11pm, dan got paged real late and had to go in to work for a few hours.


he's on this research thingy (aren't i so technical?) involving picking through a brain as soon as a person dies. (probably he explains it way better than i do, so you can get the MD version from him.)

getting called late at night to go into work is one of the many perks to being a resident.

(seven years down, three to go!)

so, while he is off dissecting, i thought, since i can't get back to sleep, i would share these silly pics of the boys enjoying one of our many slow summer mornings.

we are all loving not having to be anywhere and do anything too serious!(some more than others)

we (mostly me!) love not being on someone else's schedule! i never realized how much i love summer break until one of my kids entered school!

so this is how we fill ours mornings...staying in our jammies way too long, and finding new, fun uses for our couch pillows!

once properly stuffed, both boys began dancing around the kitchen and wiggling their packed back sides till i nearly needed to change my own jammies!


the girls thought it was pretty hysterical.

if i was more up to date on popular music, i bet i could even find a song to put to their antics.



of course, i am not.


but i did tell you last time how full my quiver was...

full indeed!




my crazy, grace-filled life with my many small blessings...

blessings that grow bigger everyday.

the hardest number of kids...

...is one more than the number of kids you have already!

yesterday i took five kids(remember my new nanny job??)
to the local science center...phew!

luckily my dear neighbor/friend/running partner/babysitter-in-a-pinch came along with her two kids, so we were 2 on 7...i think that is what is meant by "zone" defense.


today(i must have short term memory issues!) i decided to take the same five kids to the beach!

yup, that's right...me and five little people ages 3mo. to 6 years! (once again, my dear neighbor met us at the beach...this time it felt more like "prevent" than "zone"!)

within a few minutes of arriving i had three of the five screaming over various things(sand in the eyes, salt water in the eyes, starving for food...normal beach stuff). the screaming lasted so long that a grumpy older gentleman laying in the sand near where we landed(crashed really!) scooped up all of his stuff in disgust and moved himself and his three teenage kids (very) far away from us, grumbling the whole way about how we were ruining his day at the beach.

apparently i am not the only one with memory issues!



if you are hoping to see some sweet, sunny shots of small ones at the seashore, please re-read the part about how i took FIVE kids to the beach!!! :)

i have, however, included friday night pizza night pics to make you smile.



although i am definitely outnumbered these days, i am also overwhelmingly blessed!

my quiver is very full!

feelings

nearly always composed, nicely quiet, notably cute.

our number 4.

patiently waits, politely asks, properly behaves.

our blond haired, blue eyed anomaly.











that is, of course, until this occurred.


our picture of composer has gotten in touch with her feelings!


if you have been keeping up with us these days you know that we have brought a number 5 into our daytime lives...baby april adds joy to our lives monday through friday, letting us love on her while her momma(our dear neighbor and friend) works.


all was going as smooth as a road not maintained by the county until sweet number 4 realized she had to wait!


i will admit, for a moment(or ten) i was sure someone had swiped my precious child and replaced her with this screaming look-a-like!


while i am admitting things, i might as well add that a few(actually many) times throughout this day i felt like joining her on the floor.

a nice big fit, complete with throwing one's self all about sounded pretty darn good!

thankfully i managed(by God's matchless grace) to keep myself upright all day long.

summer break is well under way and we are all still loving each other.

and...we continue to learn that our feelings are NOT the standard by which we are called to live.

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.