May 2016

May was an exciting month at school for the girls. Both of them had school programs and performances. It's so fun to see the culmination of their time at school. 

Janie had her Minnesota Biome program, where the Kindergartners share what they've learned about Minnesota through songs, art and reports.

Carli had her 2nd grade music program. She had a couple of parts, played the glockenspiel in a song and danced as well.

She also had a Reader's Theatre, where she also had several main parts. Man, she's a cute girl!

This cute guy is getting chubby and grinning a lot. He is just edible!

We always love searching for baby ducks and geese at this time of year. We found several as we walked around the lake at one of our favorite parks.

Our annual Mother's Day song from these cute kiddos.

Nothing better than snuggling a sleeping baby. *Sigh*

Can't get enough of these smiles!

Our resident train fanatic is always just like this. His dad loves rearranging the tracks everyday. (Although, this particular layout was designed by Mom.)

Milo asked to have his picture taken with Baby "Dad". (He actually says Tad, it just sounds like Dad.)

April 2016

This was an exciting month! I was so ready for little Quatro to come meet us. Especially on this morning. Ever since his oldest sister got up at 1am talking crazy talk and acting strange in her sleep - sending my frenzied, hormonal mind to meningitis (the places a tired, anxious pregnant mind will take you...) - I had been up with quite strong, but irregular contractions. I got up, took a shower, woke Logan up and they died down. Just long enough for him to get deep into making several loaves of dutch oven bread for his "Art of Manliness" Elders Quorum activity that night. And, of course, while he was gone dropping the girls off at school, the contractions returned in full force, though still not regular. So, off we headed to drop Milo off with a friend (because, of course, Shanna would be arriving the next day...) and go to the hospital, where they proceeded to determine that my pain level was an 8 and I'd prefer to be at a level 4 or less, long before they determined if I could even stay at the hospital. Good thing they admitted me, or it may not have just been me with level 8 pain... 

A few hours (and a primal roar) later, our beautiful Thomas J arrived!

His sisters were ecstatic to meet him, and Milo wasn't mad either.

And we are so grateful Aunt Shanna could come help us adjust to life with 4. She was amazing with all of the help we could have dreamed. She was a lifesaver and a friend. 

She snuggled baby.

Took the kids to the Children's Museum.

Visited a Minnesota lake with us.

Read to my kids, quite animatedly I might add.

And helped give Tad his first bath.

How I love these two boys!

Next, we got Grammie for a couple weeks. She picked right up where Shanna left off. What a blessing to have her help!

She went with us to get Janie's first salon hair cut.

And while she was here Logan got to take Carli to see one of her favorite authors, Kate DiCamillo. She was so happy!

This little sweetheart also wrote this cute story about her favorite blanket that Grandma made her when she was a baby.

And this little guy has stolen all of our hearts and we don't even want them back.

March 2016

We were never so happy to see this man come through our door as we were when he *finally* came home from the hospital. It was still a long, difficult road, but much better at home. It was particularly hard that Logan had a lifting restriction for the remaining month of my pregnancy and we had a 30 toddler. We survived though.

The girls had spring break, so we went to explore a sculpture park. The weather was decent, but unfortunately, Mom failed to take into account the thawing of the permafrost that must take place after the Minnesota winter and allows the fountains of mud to bubble up from below. Even with that, and the migraine that cut the excursion short (and occurred all too frequently with Quatro's pregnancy), we still really enjoyed ourselves and wrapped it up with a stop at Dairy Queen.

I was excited about making these matching outfits for Easter. Carli wore hers to her first General Women's Meeting that she attended with Mom. What a special thing for me! 

Easter eggs!

Carli started a new hobby that we've all gotten into now. Birding. And on our first day, after a few ducks, geese and robin sightings, in flew this magnificent Great Blue Heron. She was in Seventh Heaven!

February 2016

These cute girls did projects for the school Achievement Fair. Carli was interested in learning about introverts and extroverts and surveyed people to find out the percentages.

Janie Lou wanted to piggyback on Carli's past Jello experiment, so she had people taste test Jello samples to see if they could accurately guess the flavors.

I love this kid!

Towards the end of February, Logan came down with a nasty bug for a weekend. He started to feel better, but then was experiencing stomach pain for a couple days. He went into urgent care where he was told to get to the ER. I got a babysitter and rushed him there (only to wait for 3 hours to even be seen, while meeting the most talkative and generous with his own pain meds man we didn't want to talk to...) When Logan finally got checked in I went home to relieve the babysitter, only to be awakened at 5am by a surgeon notifying me that my husband was going in for major surgery and they'd call when he got out. Not great for the frazzled, 8-month-pregnant psyche... This is what he looked like after they found and fixed the obstructed bowel that had been causing the pain. The week following the surgery, wherein Logan had to cancel a trip to a conference where he was supposed to present and postponed the major exam he was supposed to begin, was one of our least favorite ever. He couldn't eat or drink anything for days until his body was able to do its thing normally. He was miserable and it was awful watching him. 

We did, however, attempt to make lemonade out of lemons by borrowing binoculars to watch the Red Bull Crashed Ice competition from the hospital window. We are still so grateful for the immense and immediate support and help we received during this trying time.

Milo was so tired and exhausts that he fell asleep mid-play, oven mitt and all, while Mom was busy with the events of the week from you-know-where.

January 2016

Somehow I didn't end up with any pictures to document this month. I'm thinking it was a month filled with Logan playing hockey and the rest of us waiting out the frigid temperatures...