Officially Amelia Kate

Yes, she has a birth certificate and a social security card with her name on it, but it just doesn't really seem official until the baby is given a name and a blessing by her Dad.

Last Sunday, October 28th, Amelia's baby blessing took place.

Our fourth one, can you believe it? Caleb and I, as we were making silly faces and blowing raspberries at her last night, mused to each other how it doesn't matter how many kids you have; they're all very individual people, brand new, and definitely not just another baby. 

She came to this earth with a personality, a spiritual past, and a mission to perform. What will her life be like? What things will she accomplish? What will she learn? Who will she serve?

The 'norm' in our church is to perform the blessing during Sacrament Meeting, but it's not a requirement. Caleb prefers to do it after church, with close family and friends around us. 

And so in the evening we gathered, and were touched by who came.

Claire was kept very busy doing her self appointed duty of being W.'s Mother. 

Until she was scooped up, and W. was saved.

I have no idea who took these photos, but I'm grateful. I managed to remember to bring my camera, but I didn't see it again once we arrived at the church. Whoever took these, thank you!

We really love all of our sweet family who came, and so many of our dear neighbors were there, too! We've been here long enough that our friends are starting to feel like family, and we love it.

Look at this face. What are you up to, L? 

I love looking back at the other baby blessing photos. This one is different than the others in that we no longer have my Grandpa here. Other changes are we now have a new Bishop, and new Brother in law! 

The bishop was guessing which family the guests belonged to as they came in to the room, and when he met Tom he thought for sure he was my blood brother! It's the hair. 

After the blessing we all gathered back at our home for dinner. It's so lovely to have people come over, isn't it? It's worth the stress. 

Tess and her family stayed the night, and in the morning Amelia donned her gown again for a quick photo shoot.

Oh my baby. How I love you.

I confess, it has its good parts, too

We had three pumpkin plants in the garden this year. In years past we have always chosen one or two pumpkins from each plant to allow to grow, and we prune all the other ones off as soon as they appear in order to allow the chosen ones to get nice and big. Metaphors welcome.

This year, we let them all grow. We ended up with 28 soccer ball sized pumpkins. 

Twenty Eight. 

The kids put all of them on the front steps, which only allowed for a very small path to the front door. Then when it started freezing at night we had to bring them inside so they wouldn't go to mush. 

My living room was very full to the brim with all these silly orange orbs festive! 

We did manage to pawn a bunch of them off. But eventually, the inevitable family pumpkin carving night came. 

Which means the kids put in their requests and Caleb carved four pumpkins.

This one is Claire's. She requested a Piglet pumpkin, and I  personally think the likeness is startling.

 Jonah requested an Angry Monster. Check.

Our porch was looking spooky!

I decided to not think about Halloween for one microsecond before I had to, and that 'had to' happened on the day before halloween. When that day came, I really had my work cut out for me. Jonah wanted a Yoda costume. Hmm.

 I can do that. The three fingered gloves were Jonah's favorite part. In fact, he's still wearing them.
The hat? With the yoda ears? Never again will I sew one of those.

Fleece is a very forgiving sewing medium, I found, which is very good. With all the transgressions I made it had to be forgiving.

 I love this photo so much. And the little boy in it, too!

 Emmy wanted to be a pink flower. She had a very specific idea in mind for her costume, and this is it! All she required of me was a skirt of petals. Check.

And Claire, because she's two and that meant it was her turn, was the Giraffe. It's looking like every child of mine will experience these chubby buns.

Jonah was the sweetest little yoda I had ever seen. Every single house they went to, we heard him say "And here we have Claire!" "We have a little Claire coming, too" "Little Claire would also like a treat, please."

Looks like he's taking this big brother stuff pretty seriously.

Whenever my kids would talk about trick or treating, they always talked about trick or treating at this house specifically. We're big fans of the occupants.

And see the rest of the family who also came out to see us? We're friends. There's a lot of mutual admiration going on.

I didn't grow up in a neighborhood, and when I was little I didn't understand why people would want to live in one. I loved me some wide open space! But now I get it.

I still love me some wide open space, but I also love having the closeness of people who care about me and how I'm doing even though they're not related to me and they technically don't have to care. Plus trick or treating is SO much easier.

It was great to be out with all of my neighbors and all of our kids last night, enjoying the incredibly beautiful fall weather.

Sewing (eek!), candy, and freaky deadish monsters aside, I really like Halloween.

Girl Talk

If you're thinking about having a newborn, I highly recommend having a six year old first.

I do realize that it doesn't usually work out that way, but if I'm going to be making recommendations I might as well throw that one out there.

If that's not going to work out for you, by all means go ahead and have your newborn. 

See? Now no matter what, you're following my advice.

But don't listen to me.

 Also, if it were possible that your six year old could stay six forever, I'd also recommend that.

I doubt she'll love opening up her suitcase in her college dorm only to find her Mother hiding inside, but it's inevitable.

 I'm not the only one who adores Emmy.
I was worried about my subsequent babies not getting as much interaction as the first ones, because I'm so busy with the older ones! As it turns out, I think Amelia may be getting more face to face interaction than Emmy did at this age. Between her five family members, there's nearly always someone talking to her.

Look at her cute face, trying so hard to coo! Her whole body wiggles and her eyes get all excited and finally a little sound comes out of her mouth, which thrills her and her captive audience.

The big exciting events of life are breathtaking and important and wonderful, but all of the little moments in between, the ones that fill in the extra space, those are the ones that create the bulk of our lives here on earth.
I am recently redetermined to fill the 'extra space' with a little more happiness and a little less busy-ness.

Field Trip!

Aunt Katie has the hook ups, man. 

She has a friend named Fireman Eric who happens to be... drum roll... a fireman! He works at the station in Park City, so she arranged a visit for us. We picked up our favorite local cousin, and headed out.

We checked out the living quarters first, and the kids were definitely the most impressed by the gym. The ridiculously huge exercise ball was a big hit. 

This is Fireman Eric saying "this stuff is cool, right? But look at what's through those windows over there!"

The garage. Oh yeah. 

First stop, Ambulance. "Has any one ever ridden in one of these?" Only I had, and on multiple occasions too, isn't that strange?

 It was thoroughly explored by minions everywhere.

It's hard to realize how huge these vehicles are when you only see them zooming by, which is all we really ever want to see of them. 

"Anyone want to sit in the drivers seat?"

 "Yes!"

The boys were surprisingly hesitant at first, but Emmy hopped right up there. The vehicles did take some getting used to, they're just so huge!

Then it was on to the firetrucks. 

 Fireman Eric was seriously the most patient bachelor I've ever met - the shyness was wearing off and these kids were climbing all over the place! He let them all sit in the seat, let them turn the lights on and off, the works. 

Jonah hadn't realized that you could be a Fireman for a living. He thought he would have to be a Fireman for fun, but have a real job too. What a revelation it was for him!

Then Fireman Eric gave us a tour of the rest of the truck.

"This is one of the water nozzles. Want to hold it?"
Those things are heavy.

"And over here in this compartment we have..."

The Jaws of Life. Those things are crazy, man. 

"Have you ever seen a wrecked car, how it's all crunched in?"

"Nope."

"Oh. Well, just take my word for it then."

He explained what they can use this tool for, and they were sore amazed.

 Emmy then wanted to see what was behind every single door on the truck, and he obliged her.

 Having fun, guys?

Then Fireman Eric, with a sneaky grin on his face, said to the kids "Hey, I want to show you what we keep in this compartment over here on this other truck."
We followed him over there, and he opened a door, and look what was inside!

 "This is our Extra Fireman, we keep him in here for when we need extra help."

They thought that was pretty funny.

Katie had said that these guys love having visitors because it can get pretty boring on slow days. She wasn't kidding! The Firemen were obviously enjoying themselves, it was adorable.

 I don't even know what to say about this, other than I love these two quirky kids.

The last truck was the 'Tender', I think he called it. It's the one that carries 3600 gallons of water.
"How much water do you think that is?" Fireman Eric asked them.

 "This much!" answered Emmy.
"Woah." responded Kate.

"Want to drive this one too?"

Silly question. He even let them blow the air horn this time, which was deafening. Not literally, but it was definitely loud.

Thank you thank you Kate, you're the coolest Aunt ever. And thank you to her adorable and very single friend, Fireman Eric, who really shouldn't be single.

Kate's gonna love that last line there, yes?

Tomatoes, mud, naked bottoms, and other such matters.

I believe I mentioned previously that the tomato plants in the garden went bazerk* this year, yes? Pete's tomato plants, not mine. 

Well, after Pete & Co. had canned salsa for days, and after Caleb and I had canned salsa for days, the plants were still producing. 

Then my Mom came over and showed me how easy it is to make fresh marinara sauce, so I decided to give it a go.

All by myself. 

With three small children.

And a newborn. 

Brave, you say? No no. A different adjective is in order. I won't say which one. The above photo was taken after I wiped the red sauce off of every surface in the room.

After 15 quarts of sauce, I still had piles of tomatoes but no more peppers or onions, so I just started canning tomato chunks (great in spanish rice!).

After 24 pints of tomato chunks, I was feeling like one giant hot steamy tomato myself, and realized that my kids had been entertaining themselves unusually long. 

I went to investigate.

 Ahh. That explains that.

 The Cosmos had keeled over in the recent frost, so I had pulled them out, leaving behind a lovely stretch of empty soil.
They can't resist empty soil.

 There's a reason they call dirt "soil", come to find out. My washer still hasn't forgiven me.

Claire wasn't in the mud, so I went to find her next.

Ahh, there she is. In Jonah's room, playing Hot Wheels. Naked. 

Who doesn't play Hot Wheels naked though, right? 

Don't answer that.

 And Millie, sweet Millie. She'd wake up for meals, then go right back to sleep. Hence the unusually productive day in the kitchen.

And now, in other totally unrelated but happy news:

She learned how to smile, and it's causing much happiness around here.

*Is 'Bazerk' not a word? Why is it trying to spellcheck it? Baserk bazerk bazerkeydonkeylicious. Nope, they all get squiggly red lines under them. So glad we've had this talk today.