Crafting and Cooking: otherwise known as Trying to stay sane

I'm sure I've mentioned numerous times how much I LOVE being home with the kiddos. Having a new little has been an adjustment, but not as much as I expected. I guess by the time you have your fourth, you just have to think "what's another one?" :) Of course, we are tired, but other than that, Leo is so mellow, I sometimes forget he is even here. The biggest challenge has been keeping busy during the day. I used to try to get the kids out of the house as much as possible, but between having four littles and the cold weather, we are usually lucky to get out once or twice a week to story time or MOPS.

Soooo....we've been doing some Advent activities and other things to keep from watching TV all day. Here, the kiddos are making candle holders (three lucky readers will probably recieve these for Christmas--Actually, I know who they are going to and I don't know if they read my blog....but I digress). That was pretty much a huge mess, but really fun! The twins did NOT like having glue all over their hands, though!

And we also made little pizzas. I love that the twins can do fun things like this now!

A few of the pizzas got heavily cheese-ified, thanks to Jackson and Patrick's help.

Baby Leo

Little Leo is a month old now! We can hardly believe it! He has been such a joy. He is a great little baby. Somtimes I even forget he is here, because he is so quiet, rarely crying. He was 8 lbs 3 oz at his 3 week check and the Dr. gave him an A+ overall.

The other boys in the house are pretty used to him. If Leo ever cries, he has at least 2 concerned little boys trying to console him (the other is probably playing an oblivious). Dominic says "Don't worry, Baby Leo, we'll figure out what's wrong." Patrick says "Uh-oh, Leo crying!"

What a blessing this little has been to our family! We love you, Leo!!



Family picture attempts

I so, so, SO want to be a good photographer. I'm really not. I'd like to blame that on my crappy camera that was run over by a car 2 years ago. At any rate, Luke and I wanted to a picture of all the littles for a Christmas Card. Here's a few of our attempts :) We ended up booking a photo session for this Sunday...

Duck Hunting

A few weeks ago, D had his first hunting experience. Luke and Grandpa Tom took Dominic to the duck blind for a few hours. Big D got to wear his camo pants and got all bundled up. They didn't see any ducks, but Dominic didn't seem to mind! Here he is, shooting a bb gun, that they never actually got to work!

Welcome, Leo Mark!

Monday, November 8, 2010, we welcomed the newest member of our family, Leo Mark Deaver to the world. Here's how it came about...

Thursday, November 4th, we had a regular appointment with the OBs here in North Platte. We'd been doctoring here in North Platte, but have had the intention of delivering in Lincoln so we could do a VBAC (Vaginal delivery after c-section). I was not crazy about having to recover from major surgery and take care of four littles at home. We found a great doctor in Lincoln who does VBACs. He was very confident that I was a good candidate, based on the fact that I had already had one natural delivery (Dominic). Anyways, on Thursday, the Doctor said it looked like I was favorable for an induction. After talking with Dr. K's nurse in Lincoln, we decided to schedule an induction for Monday morning at St. Elizabeth Hospital.

We spent the next few days preparing for our little one's birth. Sunday, we dropped off the kiddos at Luke's parents. I usually do ok leaving our littles, but Sunday I cried, knowing that their world would be completely different next time I saw them.

Luke and I went to dinner that night and tried to enjoy our night away. The next morning, we checked in at 7:30. This picture was right before Dr. K. broke my water at about 8:00. I was put on pitocin soon after.

Labor went beautifully. I got an epidural at about 10:30--which turned out to be a GREAT blessing. I hadn't gotten one with Dominic, but now I doubt I'll ever deliver another baby without! :)

By 11:30, I was 6 cm. and by 12:10 I was ready to push. We had to wait for Dr. K for about 30 minutes while he finished up a C-section a few doors down.

Three contractions and about 8 pushes later, Baby boy Deaver arrived.

Here he is just minutes after his birth.

Luke and I had narrowed down his name to two choices, but it took us about two hours to decide. Eventually, we settled on Leo Mark. Leo, because we loved the name and Mark after our dear friend, Fr. Mark Tasler, who passed away in a car accident last April.

Leo was 6 lb 10 oz at birth and 20 inches. Everything looked great from the start!

Our experience at St. E's was amazing. The nurses and doctors were wonderful. The service was terrific and most importantly, I just felt very comfortable with the care Leo and I received there. If we are blessed with more children, I hope we can have every baby just the way we had Leo.

They even had queen size beds, so Luke could sleep with me at night.



We were anxious to get home to see the other kiddos, so we packed it up shortly after Leo was 24 hours old. Here's Leo in his going home outfit. Husker fan through and through.

Little Leo has been such a blessing to us! He is sleeping and eating well (he gained four ounces between his 3rd and 5th day of life) and his brothers love him. Dominic was especially excited to meet Leo. He has been a very big help and loves holding our precious baby. Patrick's initial reaction was to cry and yell "No" when Leo arrived, but since then, he has been mostly ambivalent to the fact that there is even another person in the house. Jackson loves Leo, also, kissing him on the forehead.

We have been so blessed! We love you baby Leo!

Halloween

We had a great, chaotic Halloween this year. We went with our friends Jeremy and Chelsea who have a little boy the same age as the twins. D was a giraffe (though he refused to wear his horns and ears because he was afraid they'd blow away...have I mentioned that he has a crazy fear of the wind?), Jackson was a Jackson-o-lantern (he also refused to wear his hat, until we got home and took off his costume, of course) and Patrick was a Chicken. Our friend, Carter, was a Dragon!

Here's our entourage trekking down the block.

He just looks so innocent and precious... :) Notice the various bruises on his head. He's earned the nickname Klutz around here. He's gotten bumped in the exact same spot on his head THREE times in the last 2 weeks.



My little zoo animals.

The best family shot we've gotten for a while :) One of the neighboring churches had a Trunk-Or-Treat. The kiddos got lots of candy there and then we had chili and chips afterwards. They were shot by the end of the night, but it was certainly filled with lots of memories!!

Happy All Saints Day Eve!!

All Saints Day Eve

This year we had our first ever All Saints Day Eve Party at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish. It was pretty great! Lots of games food and fun in an effort to put the "Hallow" back in "Halloween"!

Here's the littles pictured in front of our new church! We had a Ruth, David, Joseph (of Joseph and his colored coat), St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Noah, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and St. Francis and Cinderella.

Only Dominic got a costume for this one (St. Francis of Assisi). The other kiddos weren't too upset, though!

Big Thanks to Emily for setting the whole thing up! It was a great celebration!

Painting

How do you let 22 month old littles paint their pumpkins without having a newly painted dining room or a stressed out mamma?? Put them in the tub!

I stripped them down and let them paint away. I guess it was the best solution, although I wouldn't say it was exactly stress free for me, but it was fun. And the kiddos enjoyed it until they started to realize that they were getting paint all over themselves. As much boy as Patrick is, he has a pretty hard time being dirty sometimes. (He's pretty good at saying "I sticky" while eating his pancakes, begging to be cleaned)

All in all, they got some pretty cute little pumpkins and I was proud that I didn't completely lose my mind letting them paint for the first time ever!



Nickelodeon Live!

Luke and Dominic got to meet up with Luke's brother, Jake and our neice and Goddaughter, Jessica for Nickelodeon Live recently. They also got selected to receive back stage passes (which ended up being a very long line for a very short photo op with a few of the characters)

 Dominic has turned into a pretty bashful little, as of late. Luke and I could easily predict that this would be the scene when meeting the characters from the show!

 And Jessica and Dominic enjoyed playing with my camera before the show! :)

The Backyardigans!

 Didn't get too many shots, but sounds like they had a nice time! We LOVE that our kiddo's cousins (not to mention Jake and Jena) are so close that they can get together like this for a few hours during the week!

Good Point, D.

Our church is having our Annual Pumpkin Fest, so Dominic and I have been busy baking this week. We (mostly me) were making Chocolate Covered Pretzel rods and Dominic asked me for the millionth time "Why Are we making these mom?"

"We're making them for Church, because the ladies asked us to," I told him.

"But the Church doesn't have a mouth, mom," he smartly replied.

Eating your Vegetables

Dominic: Mom, what is squash? What do you do with it? Do you squeeze it?

One more way to get my domestic badge

I gave all three kiddos haircuts yesterday before their bath--without Luke here to help. So either I'm really awesome or really stupid. I'm actually getting kind of good at it by now, and I'd better be, as cheap as Luke and I are! I guess this picture says that Dominic might not agree that my haircutting skills are really up to par!

My creative littles

These kiddos LOVE coloring. I can't keep the crayons out of Jackson's hands, especially, which is a problem when he fails to distinguish between the walls, the hardwood floors and paper. I'm finding crayon markings all over the house. The kid has a sixth sense for finding the lone crayon that fell on the floor and didn't get picked up by accident. On this day, Xavier was joining us for a little coloring fun.

Getting ready for Baby

Dominic: What should we name Baby Four?
Me: --- ---- Deaver, probably.
Dominic: That's not a good idea. He'd be mad if we named him that.
Me: What should we name him, then?
Dominic: Dominic Thomas Deaver

Later he said, while knocking on my leg: "Baby, are you ready to come out down here, or what?"

Thriving Church

A row of littles after Mass, eating donuts means lots of future altar boys and choir members!

Days of the Week

Dominic: Mom, are we going to the lake Sunderday or Fasterday?

A.dor.a.ble.

Don't tell me these aren't the three cutest littles you've ever seen. I won't believe you.

The Big Brother

The other day, while I was looking in the fridge for something to eat, the pancakes that I had put in the toaster for the twins popped up. Before I could even get my nose out of the fridge, Dominic had pulled his stool to the counter, taken the pancake out, tore it in half to give to Jackson and Patrick and began saying before meal prayers with the twins. Be still my heart...

Little Musician

This kid seriously LOVES music. He dances all day, whether there is music playing or not. He loves to sing--his favorites being Yo Gabba Gabba songs and songs from Blue's Clues. A little boy after my own heart...

Here he is playing the drums at the Kearney Children's museum (one of three pictures I was able to get between trying to wrangle all three kiddos).

Summertime favorite

I pushed all three kiddos in our Bike Trailer that doubles as a stroller for a walk a few weeks ago. That ended up being pretty much a disaster and a reminder that I really can't do it all with three littles. Anyways, we all treated ourselves to our new favorite out door snack--Freeze Pops.

Prayers

Dominic, praying before going to bed:

"God Bless Mommy and..." Dominic is trying to think of who else, so Luke points to his abdomen "Baby four, and Jackson and Patrick" Luke points to his abdomen again, trying to get D to pray for him "and..." Perplexed, Dominic asks, "Who's in your tummy, dad?"

Some things I'm so in love with right now

• Jackson's half smile. Man, he's cute.
• Jackson and Patrick's long hair. I finally broke down and gave them both haircuts tonight, which look fine, but it was sad to say goodbye to their longer locks. It took Patrick over 15 months to grow hair on the top of his head, so most of that stayed.
• The way Dominic can make Jackson and Patrick laugh. He does the goofiest things while all of them are eating their meals and Jackson and Patrick giggle and giggle.
• How Patrick has recently been calling me "Becky". I usually say "That's mommy to you" but can't help but think it is hilarious.
• The way Dominic can tell the most dramatic stories using his hands and facial expression. He can be a little drama king at times.
• Watching them sleep. They are so beautiful, and it is so easy to be a good parent and love your children really, really well when they are sleeping. Precious.
• Watching the three littles play together. Patrick likes to take the kid chairs and line them up and make a baby train. They all climb on board and say bye to me, blowing kisses, with the occasional "toot, toot" or "All Aboard."
• Being at home all the time with my wonderful littles. This is what I was meant to do. I love it.

Aging fast

Dominic, to random person at the mall:

"I'm three and they're one (referring to the twins) and she's forty (referring, of course, to me)"

Co-conspirators

Dominic loves helping me cook, so his little stool was pulled up to the stove this particular day. After all the kiddos ate lunch, I left the kitchen for a little bit, with the leftover mac n' cheese sitting on the (cool) stove. When I came back in, I found Patrick helping himself to some big handfuls. And, he thought he was hilarious.

About a half an hour later, when I went upstairs, I found little bits of the noodles all the way up the stairs and the wooden spoon sitting on the landing, courtesy of Jackson. I think I'm in for a very wild ride.

Summer Lovin'

I have been loving this summer so, so much. We have been having a blast. This is the first summer in about 21 years that I haven't been a little depressed after July fourth, knowing that I only had a few more weeks until I went back to school. It is a great feeling. Much of the summer has been spent in the water. Dominic has become quite a little fish. He loves being in the water. Patrick and Jackson are still a little bit more timid, but they have both grown more and more comfortable in the water as the summer has progressed.

We've taken the kids swimming in the lake a few times. It's fun getting to meet up with the rest of our family, not to mention how great it is to have a little extra help!

Hot mama, Jena with baby Joseph.

There's a strict life jacket policy around the lake at all times. Luke and I are pretty nervous around bodies of water....and I think the kiddos are so stinkin' cute in giant life jackets that they can hardly walk around in.

G and G Deaver have a sweet kayak and Jess and D loving taking rides.

I've also been taking them to the pool a few times a week. Thankfully, the baby pool is fenced in. Even when Jackson and Patrick have no desire to swim, I can let them wander around the pool while watching D swim.

We often meet up with our BFF, Grady (and his mom comes, too.)

My kids seriously think that pool time = snack time. I feel like I spend at least half of my time at the pool feeding them all.

Yeah, I get about twice as many pictures of Jackson as Patrick. I can't get Patrick to sit still long enough to take any pictures of him!

And, an exchange between Jackson and Grady. Grady is so lovey. He is always going for hugs and kisses from the other kids. And, one of about a million pictures I have of Jackson crying. Poor, poor Jackson :)