Me and Like A LOT of Kids

"Embrace the glorious mess that you are." This is a magnet on my fridge. I got this to remind myself to embrace my messy house, embrace my messy life, embrace my craziness and not be ashamed of who I am and who I'm striving to be. My house is frequently considered a disaster zone. I have struggled with balancing a clean house, being a good mom, and keeping my sanity for years. It really is a delicate balance. I have found that I can be a really good house keeper OR I can be a really good mom. I'm not to the point where I can claim both of these things at the same time. Maybe someday? The pile. Everything in 1 pile on 1 side of the room. I'm a bit OCD...you'd think that this would mean that I need things super clean. Here's my problem though. If something needs to be clean, then I'm going to clean that thing till it basically looks brand new, even if that means cleaning 1 thing for 8 hours. In the meantime everything else in the ho...

Kenzie & her dad doing math on the bathroom floor. About a month ago we went to St. George for a weekend soccer tournament. My kids missed 2 days of school. After getting back, ALL my kids got sick one at a time just stretching out how long it lasted in our house. At some point when it's clear we're all going to get it, I almost want to tell all the kids to drink out of the same cup to get it over with faster! Much easier than stretching an illness over a month time frame. It's a crazy few days with lots of sick bodies, literally loads of laundry, sanitizing everything, and cleaning bathrooms and light switches all over the house. See the puke bucket to the right just in case the sick kid doesn't make it to the bathroom? That is NOT how it went down this time though. One. Kid. Sick. At. A. Time. A ton of laundry produced then washed. Bathrooms cloroxed and then cloroxed again and again. Light switches and door knobs cleaned over and over and over. All ...

1st time kids met baby Owen! I haven't been very good at writing lately due to having a new baby! I wanted to back track a bit and write about baby Owen's birth! I swear a person could go crazy at the end of pregnancy! One minute you can't wait to get the baby out and the next you've changed your mind because you still need to clean every bathroom and corner in your house. What natural labor looks like in the middle stages between contractions.  I have a lot of practice contractions in the month before real labor kicks in. I usually dilate early all the way to 4 cm and then my body sits at 4 cm till real labor starts a couple weeks later. Nurse wrote my goals out for me... All my kids have come early either at 37 weeks or 38 weeks. Usually, when labor starts for me, it's FAST and I have no breaks between contractions and it's INTENSE! To give you an example, Lilah (baby #5), labor started in the check out line at Winco. She arrived 4 minut...