This is what is saving me!!

Update on us. As many of you know Ryan finished his residency in June. He accepted a job in Coos Bay OR and although it is not the ideal location for us we are excited to move back to the west. Job hunting was harder than we had anticipated and in the end we feel pleased with the opportunity that Ryan has at his new job. Coos Bay was the first practice to contact us and after lots of pleading for other opportunities it turned out to be Ryan's top choice. We are excited to see what is in store for our family there. We are so happy for all that Ryan does to support our family. Well enough about him afterall this is my blog hehe!

Last month Ryan moved to OR by himself while I have stayed behind with the kiddos to try and sell our house. As I have feared,is has turned out to be the hardest part of this life changing year (new baby, new job, cross-country move, selling a house). So how am I faring?? Not to bad actually. While it is not in the plan for us to have the blessing of selling our house right now, I must say that we are receiving so many other blessings We have been able to stay very busy this summer doing lots of fun things many of which are in our price range of Free! It has been nice and hot which I love and will miss when I move to the cool OR coast. We have so much support from friends and neighbors, and we are completely in our comfort zone.

However reality is I have 5 kids and the oldest is 8 so no built in babysitter just yet. So what is my secret. Well it is something my SIL taught my a few years back. It is these cute little beans. We only use beans in the summertime they are our reward system. This summer especially they are saving my life. All I have to say is "I will give a bean to whoever will____" Usually I have multiple kids begging me to do the chore. Also if they are looking forward to earning a special privilege they ask me "Mom what can I do to earn a bean" Yes that is right they ask to do a chore, and it cost me nothing. I LOVE IT!! Beans are also taken away for inappropriate behavior. Beans have helped Mason to read better, Spencer to get his pjs on quickly, and Brooklyn to be held more often. Unfortunately beans have no effect on Devon and so he still may be the cause of my unravelling, but for now I am happy, and doing just fine. Thanks Krystal for teaching me about beans.

So here are the little cuties!

OK that is a bit of a fib. Here are the little crazies. Which is a more accurate description most of the time. Gotta love them.

Could I be a pioneer?

OK so I probably could not deal with actually washing the laundry by hand, but I sure do love hanging it on the clothesline. Ryan put this up for me last week and I just love it. When we were looking for houses I seemed to be drawn to the clotheslines. It seems many people out here use them. Anyway I did not know it would be so easy to put one up. Who knew all you needed was two trees.

First time with four

In Ryan's residency program he has to be on call every 2-3 weeks when he is on podiatry service. When he is off-service meaning on a rotation other podiatry there is no call. For the past six months Ryan has basically been off-service and so I have not had to deal with him being on call on a weekend. This past Sunday was my first Sunday to church by myself since having Devon. As you can imagine it was less than easy. We were extremely late, never a good start. As we are finally exiting the house I notice that Spencer has make-up on his face, and Mason has no shoes on and his shirt is unbuttoned (we had some problems focusing on getting dressed). When we get there McKena had magically buttoned Masons shirt and helped with his shoes. The only seats left are on the very front row and I am silly enough to think we can handle this. We sit down and I finally make it to Spencers face and notice that Mason also has a dirty face (syrup). Next to tying Mason's shoes. . . well he has two different shoes one black and one brown they are also both the left foot. Great!!! All this I am doing as quietly as possible considering we are in the very front and everyone can see us. We ended up being like the family having play time there in the front. Spencer would not sit down, McKena and Mason along with the boy behind them were talking incredibly loud, and we spilled cheerios all over. Thank goodness it is over. Until next time that is.

Nicest lady in Pennsylvania

A few days before Thanksgiving I was in the grocery store with all of my children, when I encountered someone that made my heart swell. I must preface this story just a little. Since moving to the east coast I have received several not nice comments about the fact that I have four children (or three and preg.) and that they are close together. One lady actually walked up to me in the grocery store when I was preg. and looking at Spencer said "Already" I said what and she went on about how I was already preg. with another. Anyway I won't share the countless others. I am in my favorite grocery store Wegmans. Now I love this store because for one hour I can put my older two children in a nursery (which they love) and shop. As I was shopping a nice comes up to admire my two young boys saying how cute they are and how lucky I am without a single word about how close in age they are. Well she happens to see me again later after I have retrieved my other two and asks are these all yours? So of course I am waiting for her to change her mind about how lucky I am. She asks if she can take one home. "On another day maybe, but today they are all being good," I responded. Then she says "God bless you." Now I get this often. Most people seem to say it as if they are really saying you poor thing. However, this lady gave me a thumbs up as she said it. I love the thumbs up sign it is so encouraging. So thank you to the nicest lady in Pennsylvania.

Now that I have four children the question is do I feel busier? Not really. In fact there are so many less things that I can accomplish each day. I am often discouraged at the end of each day because so few things are crossed off of my to do list. I really need to learn to make my list shorter but I always have hope that today will be the day that things magically fall into place and the whole list will get done. However, at the end of the day there is no magic and the list is still only half done. The whole reason why I am not able to accomplish as much as I did when I was a 'three kid mom' is because my list of 'I am always doing' has become longer. Here is my list.

1. I am always changing a diaper or going myself (I am postpartum you know).
2. I am always washing my hands, 18 times in one day. Is that a lot? I know I am lame for counting but I wanted you to have the facts.
3. I am always sitting down nursing, reading, looking at someone's blog. . . . . It just seems to be harder to get things done in this position.
4. I am always cleaning the kitchen or at least wishing that I was.
5. I am always feeding someone Devon, Spencer ( up until this week I was still feeding him thank goodness he has decided that he can handle his utensils on his own), or myself. This is by far my least favorite 'always'. I guess I could choose to eat less myself but that does not seem to be an option.
6. I am always able to find someone to hug, kiss, and snuggle. With a husband, baby and three kids there is always someone who wants to love mom. I guess since I am always sitting there is plent of time for this. Of course I love this 'always' on my list and hope it will always be like this.
   

I would love to hear about your 'always' list