Reality

Alrighty then...  so, obviously this blog has been relegated to a long list of things to do that haven't gotten done lately.  Not sure whether to even attempt to catch up or just start fresh now with pictures and happenings.  I may try to bring this blog back to life since my wonderful husband just got me an ipad with a keyboard - which means that there may or may not be opportunities in my near future to update this thing while we're on the go!
At the moment, I'm riding in the car with Cline driving, and I don't have access to pictures.  So, I'll re-enter this blog with words, thoughts, and explanations.  And maybe I'll admit a hard truth.

Four kids is really hard.

It's been over a year, and Thomas sleeps well and is an awesome baby!  All four of my kids are awesome and amazing, and I would never ever in a million years want to give any one of my children back.  But our life never slowed down or got back on any sort of routine after T was born.  One year later, I am still in surival mode with fewer brain cells than I had before.  The influx of papers and stuff into my house is constant and impossible to keep up with.  Sleep ain't happening as much as it should, and yet there is more to be done every day when I go to bed.  I  have rearranged, reorganized, decluttered, and basically reinvented my home trying to find some sort of brilliant system that keeps things neat, orderly, and most importantly, possible to find things I need when I need them.  Nothing has really solved the issues.

Some of the kids are getting older and more helpful.  But something that nobody tells you when you have a baby is that school adds a whole new dimension of stress and stuff to your life.  I can take care of 4 kids.  No problem!  I'm having trouble taking care of 4 kids AND educating one (soon to be 2) of them....

.... I started writing this over a year ago.  I found it, as I was trying to finally attempt to catch up on this blog enough to print it out, as I have all the other years.  As I sit here today, in November of 2015, we have added a FIFTH child to our family!  Sometime over the last year, things got easier, apparently.  Maybe not so much with school - I'm learning to accept that school is a reality in our family that is here to stay, and as long as the benefits outweigh the hassle, we will keep trudging along with it.  But our transition to 5 kids was much easier than our transition to 4, so much so, that baby Charlotte is only 6 weeks old, and I am finding time to blog again!  I've always done well with the odd numbered kids :)

I'm off to attempt to catch up on 2014.  My OCD is very bothered that so many posts are out of order, and that might make things confusing to read later on.  But Christa recently ran across some blog books I've already printed out, and is having a blast reading through them.  Even if it's mostly pictures, I want to attempt to have some record of the last 2 years for our family.  The out-of-order posts will just have to serve as a reminder that sometimes life gets hard and busy, and things that I would really, really, really love to do (like have an up-to-date, in order blog and a neat and orderly house) have to go by the wayside for a while.  And that's OK!