eleanor thinks she's big

we keep eleanor's shoes (along with the other kids') down low where she can get them

and multiple times a day she brings us shoes she wants to wear

this morning she brought me her sandals to put over her footie pajamas

she was very happy and then over the next few minutes

kept saying, "buh-bye....bye!"

she even grabbed her baby, a purse and tried to reach the front door handle

 i eventually gave her my keys and she was really excited about that

silly girl

i'm not sure where she thinks she was headed

but she is totally darling

i can't believe she'll be 18 months next week!

13 weeks

ahhhh thirteen weeks with baby number five! 

did i mention it still hits me in waves that we'll have five kids

and that i've done this over and over again for the last several years

we're on quite a cycle

i'm secretly hoping that this is our last baby but i'm still a little open to one more

i figure we'll know when we're done

i'm glad the end of my pregnant years is coming either way

i'm considering this the beginning of the second trimester since i know i'll have this babe

sometime within the 39th week...holla!

9/29 i felt the baby move for the first time tonight
the only other babe i felt this early was olive

it feels like fall

i made minestrone soup for dinner last night

and thought the squash and zucchini looked pretty

it was delicious 

here's the recipe i always use if you're interested

 i got out our fall decor and as i was pulling off a loose/dead branch from our tree

i realized it would be perfect fall decor

 i made a little halloween banner

and hated it at first but i think it's fine enough

(hazel took this picture for me)

 i am loving the cooler weather

and sweaters

and socks

13 weeks tomorrow

am i huge or what?!

not gonna lie, i'm pretty nervous about how big i'm going to get this time

are you enjoying fall as much as i am?

the costume dilemma

for halloween this year hazel decided she wants to be a witch

noah wants to be a ghost

eleanor is going to be hazel's black cat

but olive can't decide

we've suggested she stays with the theme and is a ghost, pumpkin or witch

but she has also considered twilight sparkle from my little pony or a princess

tonight i got out our costumes to let her see if she wants to be something we've got

i'm guessing she won't decide until the day of

i think she did that last year, too

silly girl

happy first day of fall!

a day date

michael's cousin jennie was so sweet and offered to come watch our kids today

for as long as we'd like to be gone

first we went to lunch at carrabbas 

we liked it

 that italian soda was amazing

 then we headed to the mall to shop for a new suit for michael

and we found a winner!

then we went and took it to a tailor

and had an amazing kid-free trip to target

 we ended things by picking up krispy kreme for the kiddies

it's amazing how easy running errands and shopping can be

without towing 4 kids around

thank you, thank you, thank you jennie!

you are so sweet and we are so grateful!!!

lego store, ikea, speech therapy and really good curls

a week or two ago we went to the fashion place mall

and while we were there noah and michael checked on the progress of the new lego store :)

it'll open in a couple weeks and noah is so stoked

 another day we went to ikea and michael took this picture of us watching a movie

waiting for 3/4 of our kids to get to play in smaland while we walk around ikea without them for 1.5 hours

it's amazing...also i love the other people in the shot with us...

 guess who's twelve weeks today.....this girl!

but i took this picture on sunday

cause ain't nobody got time for getting dressed up on a thursday

 michael made cookies with the girls on sunday

i think it's cute how involved they all want to be

noah was upstairs reading or he would've been in on it, too

 this was on the dropbox...i assume it's something michael is working on at school..

good job, honey!

 yesterday all three girls woke up one by one and cuddled me in our bed

i am grateful everyday for my friend michelle giving us her old king size bed

life changer! 

ignore how tired i look in the picture...i was/am

 we went to DI yesterday and let eleanor hold our slurpees

she thought she had died and gone to heaven

and didn't want to give them back

and look, there's blurry noah

 today olive started her mom and me speech therapy class

she and i both kind of hated it

i don't think she got much out of it...

we'll probably try it one more time and if she doesn't like it

i'll switch her to one on one speech therapy at the kids' school

then she didn't want to go to ballet afterward and says she'll do it when she's 5

and was terrible all day long

she's currently awake and harassing me while i type this

and i put her to bed 2 hours ago

she makes me crazy lately

and i think the speech delay is part of it

but it's also her defiant/stubborn personality that doesn't want to do anything...

unless it's her idea

hopefully it's just a phase....that's already lasted well over a year

and i'm probably just annoyed because i'm tired and pregnant lately

 in other news eleanor had really good hair today

the curls just rolled into themselves

so pretty

pray for me that olive sleeps soon........... 

my parents came for a visit!

my parents stopped in Utah for a quick visit

we loooooved seeing them

it had been too long

we were all surprised that eleanor warmed up to my dad so quickly

 they were all so happy squishing grandpa

 me and my mom

 happy girl

 we tried to get a picture of me, my mom and olive because we all look so much alike

but olive had just got hurt outside and didn't feel up to it

 later she thought she was clever wearing grandpa's hat

it was a super short visit but i am sooo glad we got to see my parents

i have missed them so much

noah, hazel and olive's shared room

ideally all of our kids would have their own rooms

but since we're in the last year of michael's grad school

with 4 kids (and one on the way) in a 3 bedroom house

 it's not in the cards yet

eleanor still naps twice a day and sleeps a solid 12 hours at night

so she's not quite ready to share a room

we really like her to sleep

so noah, hazel and olive share a room

and until recently hazel and olive shared the top bunk

but they were bothering each other (ok, olive was bothering hazel)

so michael transformed a toddler bed into a trundle for olive

and she loves it

 noah can't get into his bottom drawers while her bed is out

but he prefers pajamas anyway ;)

we don't have any toys in their room (other than stuffed animals) but we do have books

olive's dresser is in the closet

 here it is all tucked in

i'm not sharing this because i think it looks really awesome or anything

i'm sharing it because i don't want to forget how hilarious it is

to have three kids crammed in the smallest room of the house

and if you're wondering how well they all sleep in there together....

hazel's pretty good since she's on the top bunk she can ignore her siblings

noah always stays up reading no matter what

and olive just doesn't like to sleep that much but does like to play with noah..

so not great but it works for now

it definitely brings them closer together and helps them become more easygoing sleepers

and hopefully next year michael will graduate

get an amazing job and we can have a huge gorgeous house with a room for each kid... 

(a girl can dream, right?)

sunday best---all six of us

i suppose i should have taken care of that bed head before church...oops

 i just pulled out this dress that was handed down to hazel from her cousin

she loves it

 this was as smiley as olive would get

for some reason she wouldn't sleep until almost 11:00pm last night

so she was probably just tired

 eleanor is such a cutie

she and olive were so cute matching 

 i am getting a little nervous about how big i'll get this time

10 weeks looks bigger than last time...

 hey-o

our first real date

michael and i hired a babysitter for the first time last night

a young woman recently moved in to our ward that we liked and seemed responsible

so we asked her to babysit

this was literally the first time that our kids haven't been watched by our family or adult friends

and it went great

we snuck subway and slurpees to a movie 

and saw austenland

it was soooo good! we loved it.

it was super fun to go on a real date

we'll have to do it again soon

popcicles

the kids got their homework done right away

and we ate dinner early

so they had a few hours outside before bedtime

i figure we'd better soak up the last bit of summer while we can

should we find out what we're having?

michael and i wanted to wait to find out what we were having with eleanor

but decided not to when realizing how unprepared we were if it was a boy

now that we're expecting again we've been totally sure we wouldn't find out

...then i started getting cold feet when both

my mom and michael's told us they didn't think we could/should wait

but michael was still strong

then i started to get more set on not finding out and michael started to waver and hasn't been as set

i hadn't really thought of how it would affect the kids

so i asked noah and hazel this morning (separately) and they each said they don't want to wait

noah even said he'd prefer that we show up at his school once we know

bearing either pink or blue balloons and treats like we did last time we told him he was getting another sister

noah realllly wants a brother

who can blame him?

and it might be a little disappointing for him to wait until the baby is born

if he's expecting a boy and it's another girl

so....i don't know

most of our logic of waiting was that it would give us some excitement 

even though we'll have a planned c-section this time

but really, there will be a lot of excitement no matter what

will the baby have hair? light hair like eleanor or dark hair like olive?

oh who knows! 

plus the main reason i want to know is to buy cute baby clothes

but michael assured me if we wait we can save some money to buy clothes once 

the baby is here

but then we went to the gap the other day.....

and the baby clothes are sooo cute so it just makes me want to know!

what should we do?!