Life With Everett

A couple of months ago, Ben made some changes to how we store photos on our computer, and I haven’t shared any pictures since then! Pretty much, they’re all of Everett. I need to figure out a way to sneak more photos of the girls before they notice what I’m doing and tell me not to take pictures of them.;) In the meantime, here’s our goofy boy:

His favorite mealtime trick to get us laughing is to close his eyes, try to find his food by feeling around for it, and get it into his mouth. He loves the attention we give him!

Everett LOVES being outside. He gets extremely excited about birds and cars, and shouts out “Ber! Cah!” every time he spots one or the other.

He’s also really eager to get into his sisters’ things.

He is such a sweet, busy little boy, and we all just love him like crazy!!

Our Sweet Birthday Boy

It’s Everett’s turn to join our family tradition of birthday favorites! Isn’t it just amazing that in a single year, a baby can go from being a helpless newborn to a little person with very distinct favorites and fun little personality?:)

Favorite Food: apples, pancakes, muffins, sweet potatoes

Favorite Things to Do: Walk, walk, and walk some more. He also loves stories – he’ll go pick out a book and bring it to us. Bathtime is another HUGE favorite – if anyone mentions the word “bath”, he runs for the tub, calling out, “Ba, ba!!!” He loves to play ball, and makes car noises while driving his little cars around. He is so smiley and cheerful almost all the time, and loves to give us snuggles.:)

Words: He calls me “Mem”, cheers “Yay!”, and shakes his head for “no”.

We love our sweet boy!!! Can’t believe how much better life is because of him!

And here are our comparison pictures:

Video: Our Miracle Baby

Today is Everett’s birthday! He is currently stuffing his face with pancakes and turkey sausage, so I think he’s enjoying the day so far.

I’ll share his birthday favorites on Monday, but for today, here’s a video I’ve been working on – the story of how God gave us our miracle baby. If you’ve been a regular reader for awhile, you’ve probably read parts of this story before, but I wanted to tell it from the beginning. God is so good! Feeling so thankful for our sweet boy, today and every day!

Hello, Hello!

Well, after a summer of recovering from postpartum anxiety and a couple of rounds of mastitis, we were finally getting back to normal…and then school started.

I have met my match.

Homeschooling with three kids, one of whom is teething, is no small task. There are times when I think I might possibly be losing my mind, and then I need to remind myself why in the world I am doing this in the first place, and then we keep going.:)

Somewhere in among all of that, Everett turned nine months old. I wanted to take pictures of him, especially with his new little teeth poking through, but he’s been…how shall I put this delicately??….A total grouch. But with some beautiful bursts of his usual sunshiny sweetness. Poor little guy.

The only way he was happy was with his soother and a measuring cup:

I tried and tried to capture those new little pearly whites, but he was having none of it. A few mornings later, this is the closest I got:

Apparently teething is a private matter. Everett doesn’t share that kind of thing openly.

So he’ll keep figuring out the teething thing, and we’ll keep figuring out the fall schedule thing, and together, we will press on.

How has your September been going?

Six Months With Our Sweet Boy

Six months!! I need to continually remind myself that Everett will be wonderful every single day for the rest of his life, and we wanted another child, not just another baby! But I looooove this stage of his life, and it is passing very quickly!

And here’s a little comparison of newborn and now:

Oh, my heart! It could explode.

Three Months In

I clearly remember the first time the thought crossed my mind that it might be fun to have a son.

We were driving along, listening to a cd, and Steven Curtis Chapman’s son was singing the Veggie Tales song “I Love My Lips”. In the middle of the song, Steven Curtis Chapman “calls” his son, and while they’re talking on the phone, he says to his dad, “I’m in the studio right now, just workin’ on this song.”

And suddenly, the thought flashed through my mind, “We could have a son, and he could play guitar, or maybe drums, and he’d call me, and we could talk on the phone!”

Ben teases me about this, and talks about how we’ll need to have a music room in our basement for when Everett starts playing drums and is in a band. Really, Everett doesn’t need to play guitar or drums, if he doesn’t want to, but I think it would be funny if he did, and my daydream came true!

In the meantime, he’s making many other dreams come true. He’s the sweetest baby, and we all love him like crazy.

I really thought we would be a family of four. I thought we would do the girl thing, and that’s all we would know.

But I love how Everett balances things out. I love having a whole new dimension added to parenting. I love it that even though before he was born, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have him, it’s only taken a short time for everything to change, and now we wonder what we ever did without him.

I love it that our girls are learning what it’s like to have a brother. I love learning what it’s like to have a son. I love watching Ben with Everett.

If Everett is napping while we’re eating supper, I love it that there’s a huge, gaping hole already. We need him with us, otherwise something is just not right!

Before Everett was born, my sister said, “There’s just something about boys. It’s hard to describe the bond between mothers and sons.” And I smiled and nodded, but really I had no clue.

Some people say gender doesn’t make much difference when a baby is this small, but I disagree. I feel as though everything is different, and it’s amazing. I was so nervous about having a boy, and I couldn’t picture myself having a son, but now that he’s here, he’s just wonderful.:)

So Many Bodies in the House!

There are a number of kind, supportive people who have been asking about how things are going, and I realized the other day that since my post about how “knackered” I was, I haven’t really given you all an update.

It feels as though we’re getting used to our new “normal”. I’m getting some housework done, and the girls are getting their schoolwork done (although it’s hard to concentrate when you have a cute little brother distracting you…).

And this little guy is sleeping around nine hours a night, so we are discovering all over again that sleep is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

There are moments when I’m trying to get out the door with all three kiddies, and I’m suddenly struck by the fact that there are so many bodies to get out of the house! When they all need something at the same time, I wonder how women do it with 5+ children!! Having older kids makes it much easier in a lot of ways, but the needs are just different. Sometimes it’s hard to switch from hungry baby to temper tantrum to preteen character development in the span of five seconds.

There are the moments of feeling frazzled, but there are many, many more moments of feeling incredibly blessed – almost as though three beautiful, precious children is too much blessing for one mom to take in! I feel overwhelmed, in the best way possible.:)