Addition

 Our Newest Model arrived

June 19, 2012

Porter Wray

weighing in at 7 lbs 10 oz.

 21 inches long

It is amazing to me how quickly they change

he looked so much like Daddy when he was born

and each day he looks a bit more like Henry or Elizabeth.

 Enjoying the freedom and space outside the womb

 But NOT the cold.  He is a warm blooded boy, and fusses quite a bit if he's not warm

 Thank you Claudia and Summer's Mom for the adorable booties.

So how are we adjusting to life with four?

I won't lie it's pretty crazy!

Getting out the door requires at least a five hour heads up

Once the baby is fed, mom pumps some awesome milk for the freezer, diapers are changed on baby and Lydia, and kids 1 and 2 are dressed and shoed, inevitably one of the diapers is dirty again or baby has puked on himself.  THEN Mom sees herself in the mirror and realizes that she too must get ready for going out.  Public appearances don't require makeup anymore, just clothes that aren't puked or pooed on, and don't stink from overuse. 

However, I have two gems that help me so much!

I don't think I would survive with out my older two.  They are always retrieving items for Mom, plugging screaming babies with pacifiers, diaper duty (throwing outside not changing, although E is working very hard at changing too) and much, much more.

 While reading books today E told me she wanted to hurry up and grow up so she could have babies of her own.  She LOVES to be in charge and wishes that she could take total control of our family unit.  While I am sure she could do better, I am still hanging on to the reigns for now. Porter is her responsibility she says, I just have to feed and change him, she will do the rest.

How do you convince a child to take on more responsibility with out wanting to grow up so fast? How do you convince them they have it easy and to enjoy it while they can? 

I LOVE MY ELIZABETH!

 Henry seems to be indifferent most of the time, but has his moments when he really wants to hold the baby.  He grudgingly does diaper duty most of the time, but is elated that Lydia seems to want to take over.  Mom time seems to dwindle for him and reading time, especially at bed time, has fallen off.  Perhaps that explains the change in attitude.  However a quick plea for the "kind Henry" to come back usually does the trick.

I LOVE MY HENRY!

 IF you can't read the shirt it says, "Now, I'm a BIG sister" And her expression tells it all!

Not really! She loves her baby brother and has really adjusted amazingly well.  The day I came home from the Hospital all pacifiers belonging to one, Lydia, had disappeared (as they seem to do when needed). I decided it was a great time to ween her off the "paci." I claim new baby brain! It was, needless to say, a bad idea.  She won that battle and now religiously steals the baby's pacifier.

 Mostly Lydia LOVES to cuddle "her baby"

She squeezes him and rests her head on his head and kisses him

a few gentle pats for the road, getting more aggressive as she goes

She struggles with cuddle time, hates it when she gets into trouble or is in pain and mommy is holding the baby.  Then you see the dreaded "I hate this new baby" look. 

Lydia brings me joy! When I am having a rough day I only need a smile from her and my heart is rejuvenated! She is my peacemaker.

I LOVE MY LYDIA!

 And I LOVE where I live.

Alaska is beautiful!

This was taken from the Matanuska River bed, down by the old "frog pond"

I used to frequent when growing up. 

We have been exploring and hiking all over this summer

enjoying every sunny day we are blessed with.

Also a new tradition we started this year

BASEBALL GAMES!

And our home town team the "MINERS" of course get hearty cheers from the kids

They have been LOVING it.

I remember going to games with my Grandma when I was very young and loving it then too.

The rest of our time is consumed in this!

Our home that we currently reside in has become a bit "tight" for our family of six.

So we are endeavoring to get this new home done by the close of the year. 

Space we so desperately need.  Our poor Daddy works hard all week and on his weekends gets to work even harder on this.  We love him for his support and his hard work in providing for us!

WE LOVE OUR DAD!

APRIL

I have a few pictures to post.... once downloaded to computer.... here are the major events that have passed in our house.

1. Henry's 4th Birthday! : He's 4!!!! He's mostly healthy and active and happy! A blessing every day we are grateful for. Henry does not let me forget for a single day how blessed we are. His favorite past time is having Mom tell stories about when he was little. Although he doesn't quite appreciate them yet, we tell them anyways. He is strong and has the spirit of a giant. Today while volunteering at E's classroom, Henry was able to "be a kindergartner." And he LOVED every minute of it. He is sooooo excited to start school. Yeah he has another year, but he reads already and does all the "kindergarten" stuff. So we're not sure what to do with him.

2. Lydia's 1st Birthday!! : Time has gotten away from me. It has officially been two years since we got home from Seattle. We have been home the same amount of time we were gone and the Lord has truly blessed our family with an abundance of peace. He truly compensates for the struggles we have by blessing us with times of peace. And my Lydia has been nothing but sunshine since the MOMENT she was born. We were sure it was going to be a boy, and when she was born and I realized she was a girl my heart jumped inside of me and I was overcome with joy! And every day she brings more joy and happiness to our family.
E doesn't really understand or appreciate the fact that Lydia loves mommy more than her. However, tonight I was able to show her how much Lydia does love her and she was pacified for now.
Lydia is walking everywhere, getting braver every day, she has a pretty hard surface to land on (tile floors) when she falls, so she has been understandably slow in her walking phase. She LOVES applesauce cookies, just like her Grandpa, and she loves her brother and sister and Daddy. Every morning she wakes up and points first to the ladder (ladder to kids room) and then to Daddy's room. And Annie will appreciate this, she loves to give them all SLOBBERY kisses.

3. Elizabeth only has about 27 days of school left! And I will officially have a first grader! AAHH
She loves school and would "rather not have a weekend." We are looking forward to summer though, sunshine, bike rides, trips to Jim Creek and hiking. Oh how we love the summers!

4. We are working again on our new house. Slow going yes, and that's okay, when you build out of pocket that's the way things go. Our hope was to be into our new home by Thanksgiving, with the Lords help we'll make it. After June our little house will be CRAMPED! H & E love to help at the house and it is really fun working hard as a family.

That's about it for the end of March beginning of April. We have been keeping busy but enjoying LIFE immensely!

Valentines Day

Valentines Trip aboard the Norwegian Dawn

J and I went on a cruise with our best friends for 11 days down in the Carribean.

We stopped in Samana, Tortola, St. Maarten, Antigua, Dominica, Barbados and St. Kitts

What an amazing 2 weeks!

And we did it all WITH OUT KIDS!

Maybe it makes me an emotionally detached mother, but I THOROUGHLY enjoyed time alone with my hubby!

So here are some pics (now I can make you look through vacation trip photos from your computer hahaha) of our adventures.

The statistics show the average "cruiser" gains an average of 3 lbs per day!

We tried to fight the average by taking stairs and walking/exercising every day, but alas fell victim to the weight gain curse.

The BEST way to explore and view the islands is by scooter, hands down!

Just watch out for hot mufflers they tend to leave nasty burns (Ask J)
The Gorda Baths
I discovered a new love for snorkeling!

Saw some amazing shows aboard the ship, one of our favorites was the Hypnotist.

Actually we went to a few free seminars about sleeping better and diet and such and came home with a thumb drive of all his hypnosis stuff. We use them regularly, especially the sleep one. It's phenominal!

I mean really scooters are awesome, but you actually get to wear incredibly cute helmets too!

While scootering through one of the islands we snuck into a "private beach club" and discovered this amazing beach! Luckily my smart hubby drove us to the Dutch side instead of the french side, that was we wouldn't feel over dressed in our bathing suits. ;)

While I enjoy the "cruising" style, I was frustrated that we didn't have more time to explore.

Barbados!

On this island we chose to do the Sea Turtle excursion, which included snorkeling near the beach, watching ONE sea turtle get fed, and checking out ONE sunken ship. The beach was awesome but we only had about thirty minutes to enjoy it.... I think I should have opted for ONE beach day. hahha

A taste of the islands ice cream in St. Kitts

Oh so delicious!

We had an extra day in Miami when we returned, so we rented a car and drove the Florida Keys with our friends. While exploring we found an endangered bird conservatory...

Some VERY friendly pelicans.

And some really interesting/beautiful architecture. Construction here takes into account some very different types of weather than what we are used to. Tree house on the beach anyone?

We also found a huge Boating Flea market with some very interesting merchandise.

For lunch....

Some alligator and dolphin (also called Mahi Mahi in some places, not the kind of dolphin you're picturing!)

The neatest restaurant ever!

This was the waiting area.

One of the pull offs near the board walks, where we watched some guys on surf boards with parasails... don't remember what it's called. But it was beautiful, even a little over cast and it was warm!

What an amazing two weeks!

I don't think I could ever get tired of seeing palm trees and being warm.

Maybe this will have to become an annual thing!

Night 5 & 6

Well, sorry I have not updated the posts recently. Night 5 and 6 were between -10 and -16. Sleep was good but as always woke up sore.

Then a crazy thing happened. L, explained there were bennefits of sleeping inside as well and I kind of got side tracked and started sleeping inside again.

I weighed the pros and cons of each sleeping arrangments and "inside" won, for the time being......

Other than that, not much happening around here. We are all getting sick of winter, it is either below zero (which stinks and no one wants to go outside), or when it gets above zero it starts snowing.

I tried to cut some trees down, figured I would lay down about a 1/2 acre, but after about 6-8 trees I was exhausted. I was up to my waist in snow and couldn't move. When a tree would not fall the direction I wanted it to, I realized I couldn't move out of the way very fast. So maturity is sneaking up on me and I decided to wait till either the snow melts or blows away.

Speaking of maturity, have you seen all the gray hairs on top of my head recently, Well you missed your opportunity, cause I'm gonna shave em off again. Anyways it's not old age, just high mileage.....

Someone recently asked me why I shave my head, they said I looked mean and grumpy.......

I'm not sure they knew me very well. Maybe I like the mean and grumpy look.

3 more months of winter..............

Sleep Study Continued

NIGHT #3 - -8 below zero, sleeping with a pillow in the bag with me, the pillow seems to take up more space and keeps the bag warmer with less cold spots. slept like a baby, only 6 hours (couldn't hold it any longer), not sure if I mentioned this before but I am using a -25 sleeping bag, on a cot, in the open wood shed (roof, no walls except one side against the stack of wood as a wind break). One big difference is that when I wake up in the morning, although I am stiff and usually a little sore, I feel I have much more energy.

Lesson learned, if you need to lighten the load (#1) don't waste your energy trying to hold it till morning it's much better to just get out of bed and hurry back which brings me to a question, why do you haft to go pee more when your outside sleeping in the cold? In researching why I learned that when your in cold weather a change occurs. Typically most of us spend most of our time in climate controlled homes/buildings/cars and as such our bodies are usually producing sweat at varying levels, in order to control the body temperature. When you leave that climate controlled environment for an environment that is colder where your main heat source is your body, then you almost completely stop sweating, since you are now focused on heat production and preservation. Additionally being exposed to the cold causes your blood vessels to constrict and thus less blood flow to the skin surface. Cause and effect, the effect of not sweating and less blood flow is an increasing the blood pressure and more fluid in the body (usually expelled through sweat and evaporation). Thus you need to dispose of the fluid in the form of urine.

NIGHT #4 -14.9 below zero when I woke up. Very deep sleep. Very cold night, felt warm in the sleeping bag. I am thoroughly impressed with the sleeping bag. I am not sure how they determine the rating on sleeping bags but even without a tent this sleeping bag kept me very warm and not at all uncomfortable in terms of temperature.