Colorado Crockers

 Baby J, asleep in his favorite place, on my chest. Baby boy is happiest in someones, usually my, arms. He is sweet but smiles are hard to come by still.  Boo Belle. A whole lot of attitude in a pretty small package. She is SUCH a 2 year old, swinging from wanting to make all the choices and having total control to wanting to be the baby and be in my lap.  Eliana is every bit the big sis. Take charge (sounds so much nicer than "bossy") and over all pretty helpful...if she can remember what it is exactly you asked her to do. Loves to talk. And talk. And talk.  These two are peas in a pod, becoming such good friends as big sister is sometimes a bit too old to play there games. Addilyn Joy. Such a character. Most likely to make a mess, and if you look closely at this photo you will see yogurt still smeared on her face. Falls out of chairs at least once a day from being squirly.

I think I could say with some degree of accuracy that most every child in this great US of A owns a copy of a Dr. Suess book. Many, if not most, probably have in their possession a copy of  "Goodnight Moon". Neither of those are the books to which I am referring. This book is much more secretive. Think "large conspiracy" like the Masons or something. This is a book entitled "How to keep you parents humble". Each child is made to memorize a copy before being born, it is the playbook-of-sorts for all of childhood. The first chapter in this uber-secret book is called "Birth-Keep them on their toes". It covers things like swift kicks to mama's bladder to make her pee and think her water broke, choosing not to be born anywhere close to your due date and the super speedy entrance into the world that happens in things like trains and taxi cabs. Least this first act be usurped in any way, the next chapter is entitled "Infanthood-Th...

I am not a man. Big shocker, I know. Nor is there any part of me that wishes I was. I dig being a chick. I like that I have soft skin, soft curves, wear make-up and grow babies. I like that my hips sway when I walk, I enjoy wearing heals and pretty dresses. Being a girl is cool with me. I think being a man would be hard. I believe that, just like our culture reduces women down to pretty faces with empty heads, men are often reduced to being nothing more than a paycheck with a penis. Sadly enough, I think Christian culture has fed this lie without meaning to. We have boiled down the word "provider" to be synonomis with "money maker". Especially in the single income family, stay at home mommy realm. The work/life balance of the east coast sucks. People work crazy hours and for a while, Matt did too, and I could see how torn he was. There is no peace to be found, identity to be had, in a career driven life. So many people have such little respect for all the other ...

My children dress better than I do. I think I care more about weather or not they look cute and I can usually find cute stuff for girls, generally name brand, at the thrift store. My children also eat better than I do. Once again, I think I care more about what goes into there little, growing bodies more than I care about mine. My kids eat lots of fruit, some veggies, mostly whole grain and very little "junk" like nuggets, pizza, chips or fruit snacks. They do get a treat after nap, usually home baked, and if we happen to be out of baked goods I will hear about it. In an effort to be healthy and put my money where my mouth is, both figuratively and literally, we joined a CSA. For those of you who are not quite to the hippy extreme that I fancy myself to be, CSA stands for community supported agriculture. Basically, a farm share. We pay the farmer up front, when a small farm needs the money, to get a share of whatever they produce over the next 20 weeks. This w...

I can't cook rice on the stove. Especially brown rice. The problem is that brown rice takes at least 40 minutes to cook and I always manage to either boil it over in that time or boil and dry and burn the bottom. Nothing says "yummy dinner!" like the smell of scorched brown rice. 40 minutes is a long time to be mindful of something, especially because it isn't like rice is the only thing I am making for dinner. Usually an evening meal for us includes a protein, carb, hot veggy, and salad. So really the problem is that rice is only 1 of 4 things I am trying to manage which is why I love my rice cooker, perfect rice every time. And so goes my life. My children are my brown rice. New born babes just take a lot of managing to keep them happy. He is not a particularly hard baby, but he is still a baby. He eat every 2 ish hours and poops at least that often. He loves to be held and rocked and prefers to sleep on my chest. The problem with that is he is one of four "t...

 With baby #1 you are careful to document "firsts" of all kinds, both with photos and little notes in the baby book. By baby #4, you are thrilled if you remember to bathe everyone at least weekly. Be that as it may, we do have a couple of pictures for posterity of baby J's first couple of weeks of life. I hope to get more, but right now I am working on keeping everyone fed and in clean underwear, or any underwear at all. This is Jamison's first check up, performed by one of our lovely midwives. As you can see, the girls were very interested in all the goings on. It was so nice to not have to take him somewhere, have him poked and prodded in a nursery while I sat waiting for someone to bring him back. Instead we were all a part of the action. First bath! He wasn't thrilled. He is now, if he has completely lost his cool he loves to take a shower and it calms him down right away. He is also very tollerant of being tossed in the bath with his sisters, wher...