Ahhhhh life. It's SPRING! I'm so up and down with the seasons, probably a character flaw, but whatever. I'm so glad the days are longer, warmer, and we can ALL spend a little more time outside. 
Life as a family of 5 is going along so nicely (most days). We have our hard, terrible, don't-want-anyone-to-see-these-days as much or more than any other family I'm sure, but they are outweighed by the good days, thankfully. I never want to paint a facade of nicety and whitewash our whole life so that it looks just beautiful to anyone paying attention, but I'm afraid that's what often seems to happen when we control what is shared via the internet. It's unintentional, and yet it happens. I know I'm so prone to looking at other peoples' highlight reels on Instagram, Facebook, or Blogs, and then feeling like I'm failing in a million different ways.
So, in the interest of full disclosure before I get to bragging about our kids, let me assure you that I probably yelled at my kids this week more than you did, and my husband and I did not spend every evening taking long walks while holding hands and gazing into each other's eyes. I'm simply choosing to focus on the positive here, because that's what I want to remember.
MILO
Milo is 6 1/2 now with a half smile of grown-up teeth. He has been loving Kindergarten. He has improved SO MUCH since the beginning of the year. He is writing full sentences into stories, excelling at math, and he is reading well. His favorite part of the day is recess, and he recently started riding the bus home when he began going for the full day of school-we had taken the half day option all year until the week before spring break.
He is fairly obsessed with all types of birds of prey, specifically eagles. Nearly every day he shares some bit of trivia with me about eagles, hawks, or peregrine falcons. He's always got his eyes on the sky, and whenever he can convince me, we take the long way home so he can look at an eagle's nest.
At home he loves to make his baby sister smile. He sure likes having her around.
He can most often be found playing outside, making up scenarios and using his imagination. He's always been a kid who can play independently very well. Or he's chasing his brother down with a garden hose that's turned on full blast. He can be a bit of an instigator....I think he learns it from his dad:)
Two weeks ago, Milo was baptized at church. He had asked to be baptized several times over the past year, and he is really able to articulate an understanding of his relationship with Jesus, what it means to be saved from our sins and saved to a life of following Christ. He has his own story about waking up early one morning and talking to God by himself, and asking for forgiveness for his sins and telling God that he wanted to follow Him. So, it was with great joy that we had many conversations with him about all of this, and proceeded to go forward with baptism. The day after he was baptized he said that it was "the most fun day of his life". It was pretty awesome!
Nick
Nick is 4 1/2 and full speed ahead every day. To say that he has zeal for life would be an understatement. He talks pretty much non-stop while he's awake unless he's watching Curious George, so......needless to say he probably watches a little more than he should sometimes so his mama's ears and sanity can catch a BREAK. He gets a little bored now that Milo is at school all day, so I'm his only source of entertainment and the poor boy doesn't understand that we can't go for a four-wheeler ride for the entire day every day, because normal people have to do laundry and dishes and yada yada yada, he doesn't care. He just keeps following me around and asking me the same questions over and over and over.
He is a complete package of energy, fun, kindness, and adventure. He has really grown into his role as big brother over the past month. He is very affectionate towards his sister, and very sympathetic when she cries. She has gotten up early from many naps because at the slightest squawk Nick races in to pick her up. Good for Leah, bad for mom.
Nick is very thoughtful and helpful. He frequently brings me flowers, and last night when he saw the tiniest cut on my hand, he disappeared for a minute and came back with a band-aid and neosporin for me.
He has almost done a full year of preschool at WFMC Kidstown preschool. He has grown to love it. He likes his teachers and his friends, and he seems to be catching on to letter recognition now. He will do one more year next year, but in Cashmere.
Nick's favorite things to play are blocks, playdough, riding his bike (sometimes dangerously fast down hills with reckless abandon, while visions of gravel removal dance in his mama's head).
I am really loving my days with him. I'm realizing how fast these little years go. It hit me like a ton of bricks when Milo went to school this year. My days with Milo in our home, spending lots of time together are done-except for summer break which is coming up fast! I'm so much more aware of how fast Nick and Leah will grow. It always seems to be such a paradox-they can totally drive you nuts, but at the end of the day, when reflecting on the impatience and the snappy words that were spoken, you hope for a better day tomorrow and start to lament about how quickly it's all going, and hope that you're not screwing them up for the rest of their lives. We probably are, but I think everyone needs counseling at some point right???
Leah is just along for the ride in all of this. She has no schedule. Zero. Third babies must just be made to be adaptable. So often she will fall asleep and I'll have to wake her or move her or put her in her car seat because we need to go take a brother to school or pick him up.
She was sleeping through the night until last week. Now she's not. I think this is just how it goes. I'm not going to worry about it or try to fix it anymore, I'm just going to roll with it and try to enjoy each day (and night) as much as I can with her. I was so STRESSED when the boys were babies. I constantly felt like I was doing it wrong. Especially when asked the question: "Is he a good baby"? Well if by good, they meant not crying and taking long naps and sleeping all night, then no. So I always felt like I wasn't trying hard enough to be consistent and establish schedules and routines and habits, and now I've just tossed all that to the wind. They are babies for about 3 seconds, and yes when naps are short, the house is messy, the dinner is sometimes cereal, and the nerves are frayed, but it's just life. No use getting all upset about it.
Leah is a constant source of joy in our family. We are all just enamored with her. She is not lacking in love and adoration. Nick calls her "Lee-Lee" or "Lou-Lou", and now the rest of us are following suit. She started rolling from tummy to back just a couple of days ago. She still nurses every 2-3 hours while awake, but she's fast. She is just so adaptable and easy. So great to have a third baby with this kind of temperament.
I'm having so much fun with having a girl. I never got my hopes up for a girl, so never really had plans for what I would do with one, but now that she's here, I feel like I've been "re-girlified". I can't help but buy cute clothes for her and dress her up in all the adorableness that gets thrown at her from everyone she knows! This has also led to me doing some shopping for myself. Now that I have a girl to be cute with, I realized I had no clothes that weren't old jeans and sweatshirts and t-shirts! I had been in farm-wife-boy-mom mode for the past several years. I still am, I'm just a little more dressed up:)
Anyway here she is:)
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