Twinners 4 month checkups

Little A at four months (LOVE checking out my thoughts on more babies at this point with her!) and her four month pics and little d at four months (SO funny that the first time I left him alone for an extended date night was with sarah... first time I left the twinners to go to the temple was also with sarah!) to compare.... not sure why I didn't document four month doctor visits?! but hopefully by 6 months we can compare the four of them in heights and weights...

Lo:
14 lbs 8 oz (30%),
24.5 in (30%)
16.5 in (55%-head circumference)

Lan:

16 lbs 3 oz (70%)

24 in (10%)

16.75 in (80%-head)

In case you weren't aware. LO LOVES TO STAND!!! I barely have to hold him. He loves it.

LAN LOVES TO SIT!! And Lo tolerates it as long as I make sully noises.

typical Lan buggy eyes.

typical Lo confused-eye brow raised look.

LOVE LOVE LOVE these little four month squishes.
Sesame street bandaids for the win!

August birthdays weekend!

Little d's grandma and BFF share birthdays within a day of each other... So we got lucky and got to spend a whole day celebrating them both! Also Anna can into town for the day so drew and I got a second date night in in one weekend! Don't think that will ever happen again but it was awesome!!

I case you're wondering who Lo isn't in any picture... He slept most of Saturday:

Cosi for the third time in a week!! Getting our money's worth!

I love you Anna. But I need to burn that shirt, and possibly this picture. You never realize how bad a shirt looks on you till you see it in pictures! Otherwise an amazing weekend :)

First "real" date night in too long

We didn't run errands, we didn't go to the temple or go do service like helping someone move... Not that I mind any of those things in the least!

But tonight, thanks to Liesen and Ryan watching all our littles, it was just him and me at dinner and for a little walk down by the reservoir.

Such a simple date, but definitely one of my favorites. Getting to walk and talk uninterrupted and without pushing a stroller... Well it felt awesome. What a great start to the weekend:

Officially a soccer mom as of today

I don't know how we ever doubted this boy's skills on the soccer field or why we even bothered with tball last year. This boy, the one who was kicking a soccer ball even before he could walk (true story!), has once again found his calling in life. This speedy dude loves to run fast and kick that ball and I'll be darned if he can't manage to do it simultaneously better than any kid on his team (and his mom at that!). He's the one in the dark grey shirt, black shorts and long black socks. Little d does not need around. He is competitive and he means business.

I am one super proud mama. Already prodigy in my book, or at least better at 5 years old than I am at almost 30.

And not to be left out, little Lo:

Little Lo and a little known fact about the 2016 Honda Pilot of ours... That grocery/cargo space makes a seriously good changing table, one we have used more times than I can even remember in the few short months we have had the car ;) the convenience of this overrides any desire to potty train little a until she's at least 3. And a half. Maybe 4. Also cleaner than most restrooms I have to change the boys in!

Lan trying to snag a sip of my new favorite chocolate shake... Scoop of chocolate protein powder, two tablespoons of almond butter, one cup of ice and 1.5 cups unsweetened vanilla almond milk, recipe courtesy of Chris Powell. Perfect post workout snack to tide me over until I can manage to feed and nap/send to school all my littles and can finally settle into lunch.

And little a wearing the same shirt (different sizes, two years ago it was size 12 months (for my four month old!) and today it was size 3t. Love her!!!!

My little side sleepers

perfectly imperfect

Just when I felt like things were starting to calm down at night and we were settling into a nice pattern of sleeping longer stretches (4 hours!!!), the last week has hit me like a ton of bricks. They need to eat every three hours, and then sleep on their sides so there is a lot of crying because binky fell out or they smell milk on the mattress and get frustrated because that mattress is not their mama.... wow. Lan is back to early mornings in my bed, and when Drew is out of town Lo joins us as well (after he's nursed of course, since he nurses best in my arms in a dark room while he is still half asleep). Any sort of effort placed on workouts or healthy eating in the last few months feels like it has just gone down the drain. Saturday night the big kids were also awake at random hours of the night and I think I had maybe a 45 minute stretch of uninterrupted sleep that night. Thank goodness the next day was sunday and I was able to snag a 3 hour (interrupted multiple times of course) nap.

But sleeplessness, that the real deal right there. I know there will be good days and bad days and most days I don't care either way because it is what it is, but tonight I feel pretty worn down. My house is a wreck and I want nothing to do but to go to bed but I first wanted to make sure I documented a few things. I was reading a talk from last fall's general conference and I was struck by I think it was Elder Cook's talk about social media and how people try to only put out the best of themselves and how that made other people feel bad about themselves and that really resonated with me.

When I first started blogging I followed a LOT of blogs. Too many to count and they all in some way made me feel bad about myself, not because of any fault of their own, but the reason why I followed them was because they managed to master what I felt I was lacking, whether that was in the running/professional/perfect mommy/etc realm. Same thing happened when I joined Instagram back in 2012. Obviously that isn't a healthy thing, so over the years I have whittled down what I read to blogs/instagrams of friends and family (and a few celebrities I admire) I genuinely care about, and to keep an open, honest policy with my blog. Of course I try to be optimistic and on the whole I LOVE my life.

I love the quote "Choose your love, love your choice" and I hope it comes across here (Especially when I think about the possibility of my kids reading it many years down the road) that I do! I LOVE being a stay at home mom... I tried the working mom thing and even with one child it was a horrible struggle for me, and not one that I felt the least bit successful or happy with. YES, it is hard to have a husband who travels but it is a sacrifice I am willing to make to be able to stay at home with and raise my babies while they are still so young. I LOVE my children, even though the most recent additions are the reason I am not up and running currently.... I got a terrible abdominal separation with the twinners and have been trying a super low impact (NO running or anything I was used to doing!) three month workout plan, starting last month, to heal it so that I can go back to running (and anything else I want to do) with confidence. As much as I hate the walking and other "boring" exercises (and dearly miss pushing myself to the limit!!) at the gym, I still go and I am happy to go because I am taking charge of my health.  I love food, I love making healthy foods for my kids (Even when they hate it...more for me?) and indulging in delicious treats with them even if it means my waistline will take a little longer to get back to normal.

I LOVE being a mom to my four children, each one a wanted and loved member of our family. I CHOSE to be a mother, and I am SO grateful my father in heaven assisted in that choice to make sure I ended up with the four children we definitely needed in our lives. Every morning, despite the lack of sleep from the night before, I CHOOSE to spend the majority of my time with them, and while it may not always be rainbows and lollipops, and I struggle and it's hard and I don't always act the way a good mother should, I am TRYING my best. Because everything has its opposite, and if the hardest part of my day is the lack of sleep I get the night before, and I still wake up to four healthy happy (for the most part) children and a husband who loves me despite all the crazy changes I have gone through in the last 10 years AND is my #1 help with our children, then I count myself lucky.

And even though tonight I feel burnt out, no desire to do anything but stare at the dirty dishes in the sink or the random stuff the kids have strewn all over the floor... tomorrow is a new day. And today I managed to take my kids to COSI before school and then have friends over after school and they both were so happy going to bed because they got to spend time with people they love. Not that they don't love their dear old mom, but my attention is still divided between the bigs and the littles and I;m not sure how or if that will ever get better.

I never felt like I was a perfect mom, but at least when I had little d, I felt like after I quit my full time job, I was for the most part giving him 100% of me... but then there was also moving across the country, working part time, training for a marathon, and then getting pregnant with his sister that shared in taking quite a bit of that attention. Sweet little A only knows life with shared attention, so her I am used to feeling guilty about not spending more time with her. But them you throw in the boys and man... I feel most days like my kids truly only each get 20% of me, and the remaining 20% is spent trying to make meals, keep a clean house, and struggle to stay awake. It is HARD, and don't let me fool you otherwise. But it is completely worth the little quiet moments that often (but not always) make it to the blog.

I'm a blessed mama with a lot to learn. Like how to better manage my time and unplug and all that....I'm a work in progress. And if I can manage to remember to snap a pic or two a day so I can actually remember what I did that day, I'll call that good enough for now.

a moment i wish i would have caught on camera.

video camera, that is. so that when little d is throwing a fit and telling me how awful and boring I am I can just replay it over and over again.

this afternoon, post-lunch, but before school, the kids and I were all upstairs. Lo was asleep and Lan was crying in their respective cribs. I was getting little A situated for her nap (that she did NOT want to take) and who should come into the room to calm this frazzled mama, but Big Brother. The conversation went a little something like this:

"Mom, don't worry, I'll take care of her. You go ahead and feed the babies and I can, you know, read her a book, sing to her, tuck her in, all that stuff. You just go, go ahead. I've got this."

The best part? He did just what he said he would do, leaving a happily napping sister in his wake. AND .....that is not the first time he's done that.

Yes, my five year old drives me completely crazy because he wants things HIS WAY all the time, or he acts like he is the only child (ummmm... first child syndrome?!) and my world revolves around only him and, gosh, EVERYTHING HAS TO BE 100% FAIR ALL THE TIME or he gets so stinking upset!!!

BUT

But but but but....

then we have moments like that and I think, maybe I'm not such a terrible mama after all. Or maybe he's learning some really good stuff on how to calm me down from his dad. Either way, I will consider myself lucky.

Lucky mom, lucky neighbor.... to have such awesome neighbor-friends to catch a few priceless shots when I forgot my phone in the house. Thank you, Cristin!

And thanks to drew letting me hang out with the boys outside even though the big kids wanted to go in after the gym, and I got some time outside to nurse the boys in perfect 70' weather. 

Gosh they're going to need to stop being so adorable. I can hardly stand it sometimes. It's pure torture having to split my time between these two handsome Devils, and on top of that, with the two other big kids. Yeesh. Time truly stops for no (wo)man.