Hey Santa

St. Nick visits our neighborhood every year about a week before Christmas.

On Friday night he drove through and tossed out candy and on Saturday he was at the neighborhood clubhouse. 

And we have the token parent in the picture photo just to get Rosie to get near him. 

The kids can color and write letters to Santa if they so desire. There are breakfasty type snacks, coffee and juice along with candy canes for the kids. There's usually a suggested donation of food for the local food bank too. 

What It's Like

So this is the truth about our life with 4 small children or life with baby #4.
We are blessed beyond measure and I am so thankful for each of our children. I wouldn't have my life any other way.

But it is busy here...the fact is that I am just now getting a chance to blog more. And you know what? When I choose to blog, then that means most likely some other chore in the house might be neglected for the moment. And I bet that's the truth for so many blogging moms out there who have children at home with them.
When we choose to take time to blog, that sometimes means that some dishes are not being put away or that shirt isn't getting mended or dinner might get started a little later than usual. There's a price to pay.
Or maybe sometimes I blog at night which means I am not getting as much time with my husband or I am not going to bed as early as I should.
A ball has to get dropped.

But it has taken me longer to start blogging again because Mr. Lucan has been colicky for most of his life. Just during the 5th month, he now cries less in the car. He actually smiles and coos and sleeps in the car....and still cries...just not as much and it's more crying and less screaming. He also cries less at night. Just during the last week, he has stopped his three hour crying jag in the evenings. He actually goes to bed early around 6 or takes a late catnap around 5.
E cannot believe it when he opens the door and he doesn't hear L screaming.
He smiles so much more now and generally is happy for much longer before getting tired. His naps are also longer. Woot!

So besides having a colicky baby with reflux that screamed/cried for the first 5 months of life, I have had a longer time of recovery after childbirth.
I am hoping to avoid surgery when little man is 1 and have been going to physical therapy since the first week of August. I have had 12 sessions and I may be able to be discharged soon. Time will tell.
Lingering pain has slowed me down and I haven't been able to be on my feet as long as I need to be with 4 children in the home. The PT has helped and I am gaining back time and strength...thankfully.

For the first 16 weeks I was also doing exercises nightly trying to heal my diastasi recti. This was quite difficult because of baby boy crying like crazy and E trying his best to console him and not really succeeding. But somehow I managed to get in a little bit of exercises and according to my PT, my diastasis is now about 1 finger to 1 finger and 1/2 width apart.  I'll take it.

So...if you are following along:
That's 3 children at home with me full time and 1 more after school
1 colicky baby
Physical Therapy weekly/bi-weekly
Nightly exercises up until a few weeks ago. 

Add to that the usual dailies:
grocery shopping with children, laundry, dishes, cooking, general housekeeping, child raising and homework. Ugh...homework. Can I just say-I'M SORRY- to the parents of my former students and the homework I sent home each night. Forgive me.

Let's back up to cooking...

Back in July I wanted to start going with a clean eating type of lifestyle.

Sometimes known as whole foods eating.

I had to give up dairy, tomatoes, and chocolate when L was 2 weeks old because of his colic and reflux. While it has helped me drop all the baby weight and then some, I also wanted to work on my diastasis recti and just eating well.
We already thought we ate well...ate healthy. But I hadn't really taken a look at the sugars in foods and some of the preservatives in foods or the white flour in so many things.

Now, we are transitioning to a clean eating lifestyle. That means cutting out white flour, refined sugar in all its many forms, preservatives, ingredients I can't pronounce, and anything artificial. More organic, more local, more fruits and veggies and trying (the key word being "try") to only buy prepackaged items with 5 ingredients or less. (This gets tough with store bought whole wheat bread.)

Some of this we were already doing before...such as only eating whole wheat bread and buying mostly whole wheat pasta. But now I try to make our pancakes and waffles from a whole wheat mix and even home making our whole wheat mixes myself.

This has led me to trying to make a lot of things. I recently made whole wheat waffles one weekend on our newly bought waffle iron and homemade whip cream! Instead of using refined sugar in it, I used honey. That's another thing...substituting honey or real maple syrup for sugar in recipes. Or just not eating any kind of sugar unless it's in fruit.

This is becoming way more detailed that I planned and way more details than you dear reader even need.
Most of my recipes come from this blog and her book: http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/

And this page from the Mutu system for healing a diastasis recti: http://mutusystem.com/ (Note: You have to buy one of her programs to get the food information.)

This all means that I am now spending a lot more time cooking and preparing dinner and snacks. Almost daily I am cooking or baking something.

Then on Wednesdays, we have CBS which is Community Bible Study. We are going through many books of the Old Testament this year. Right now we are in Zechariah. It's an awesome study and I am I am glad I have it in my life as it keeps me accountable to keep getting in the Word daily. 

As for our mornings and evenings:
I get Miss A up at 7 and E takes her to school around 7:40. She has to be there by 7:50. She gets home around 3 p.m. each day. E gets home from work around 6:15. He likes to say "6:00".
I usually start preparing dinner around 4/4:30 because inevitably there will be an interruption or two. The only difference is on days I have leftovers (glorious days) and weekends.

Our children aren't in any after school activities usually. Miss A is in a cookie/cupcake decorating after school activity at school on Fridays right now but that will end soon and a neighbor volunteered to bring her home for me. Woohoo. Thank goodness for kind neighbors! She probably just felt sorry for me "schlepping" 3 other children into the school on Fridays to pick up Miss A.  I must have looked frazzled. Pity or kindness... whatevs...I will take the help.

 Sunday mornings are church mornings and we somehow make it to church on time-ish.  We just started back up working in the children's ministry again a couple of Sundays ago. E and I are working together in Miss A's class. It's a Kindergarten/First Grade class with about 10 boys and 3 girls. Wild times. God bless 'em to the teachers who teach that class by themselves.


So I think that's our life right now. I am probably definitely forgetting something...and maybe I will remember it later or maybe not.
As you can see, I haven't had time to blog L's birth story yet nor post pics from our summer vacation, Father's Day, two weddings we went to recently, our Louisiana trip, Halloween, three of our birthdays, etc.

It's a busy life just raising 4 children and I am so grateful for the opportunity to raise these children. To have their noise and laughter and smiles and messes and tears and joys and art and personalities...it's all a gift.

My prayer now is this verse that my friend, Carrie, so eloquently posted in an email to our moms group yesterday:
Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Philippians 4:5

Hoping to etch this into my mind as I respond to my children throughout the day and raise them in a way that brings glory to God.

And Now for 4 Months

This post is coming after the 5 month post.
As you can see, I am super organized. Always on time with everything. I keep things together impeccably and I am never ever frazzled. Ever. I am incredible. Truly.


Bahahahaha!

Moving on.

My baby boy turned 4 months old in September.

Here's his pic...actually that is not the correct pic. But I cannot find the one I did with his 5 month sticker that came out clearly. How that has gotten lost on my laptop is beyond me. But alas this is life with 1 school aged child, 1 preschooler (who only goes 2 days a week for 3 hours at a time), a 3 year old and a baby.

5 Months

Mr. Lucan turned 5 months on October 24th so this is late which is the new normal here when it comes to blogging. The only reason I'm blogging now is bc I downloaded the app and I can blog a little when I'm nursing.

So here's the cutest and most precious baby boy's pic

I just adore that baby boy!

Stretttccchhh

Capital Food Fight

The hubs and I went to the Capital Food Fight on Tuesday night. (And it took lots of prep for me to get everything ready for a sitter to be with my four for six hours thus leading me to question why I said yes to this idea) 

Alas, the night was great and our kids were superb. Mr Lucan took a bottle well and didn't scream-cry for his regular nightly interval. Hmmm...perhaps he was trying to impress the babysitter. 

Here's a collage of our night out (thanks to E's work for being a sponsor of the event).

Oh and PS-this event supports DC Central Kitchen which is a phenomenal organization.

1 Week, 1 Month, 2 Months, 3 Months

So I am about to play a little catch up...
Here are some pics I have taken over the past three months-
1 Week old...so precious-

 First Father's Day...so sweet!

 1 Month Old-

 2 Months old-

 3 Months old-

 And a smile-

Introducing...

Our newest bundle of joy!
Oliver Lucan
Born Saturday, May 24, 2014
10:51 pm
7 pounds, 7 ounces
 18 1/2 inches long
He was two weeks and one day early.
Born at 37 weeks, 6 days:

Birth story coming soon...one of these days...it's crazy busy here!

A See Ya Later to the Dinosaurs (For Now)

On Good Friday which was also the last day of spring break here, along with the rest of northern VA, D.C. and Maryland, we decided to head to D.C. to check out the Natural History Museum and see the Dinosaur exhibit before it closed for renovation. It will not reopen till 2019. Our baby boy in utero will be 5 by then.

Like I said, the rest of the surrounding states were there as the line for the museum was outside the door.
Thankfully it moved quickly.

We really were only able to see the dinosaur exhibit while we were there and a little bit of the sea life exhibit and one other exhibit before our children started melting down.
(It had been about 3 1/2 years since we had been and back then we only had 2 children and they didn't really remember it.)

The dinosaur exhibit was PACKED. We were so glad we had decided against the stroller although it meant Rosie wanting to be carried everywhere around D.C. Not to mention that FJ had a tummy ache and wanted to be carried too. So I ended up carrying Rosie which in turn caused me to have one long BH contraction for the entire time I was carrying her.
What we won't do for our children.
Anywho, here are some pics from our time there (along with Flat Stanley):
Took this pic to remember where we parked- 

 Walking to the museum...notice E carrying Rosie..at this point regretting our decision to not have the stroller or Ergo.

 She's unhappy because brother wanted in the pic too. Imagine. The injustice!

Happy Birthday, E-Love

My husband, my love,  the father of our children, celebrated his birthday in February and I realized I never posted this blog post to the blog!

Over the weekend, his parents celebrated him with cake and on Monday, the kiddos and I took him out to eat at Eggspectation...and the name is what it suggests...lots of delish menu items with eggs as the main dish.

Lots of cake and lots of happy birthday wishes for him.
He is such a catch and I try to thank him often for choosing me.
I love him!

Wobbie and Shar-In

Uncle Rob and Aunt Sharon aka according to Rosie "Uncle Wobbie" and "Aunt Shar-In"
came for a visit two weeks ago and we had such a fun time!

They are truly awesome.
We love them!

They are fun, adventurous and very helpful!

We and they took lots of pics to share.

It was truly a great few days.
That Saturday, we took them to a farm that has a ton to do...
like a cow train-

 

And ice cream-

 And a bouncy pillow-

 And feeding the farm animals-

 

Our kids were so worn out on the way home, they all fell asleep

 
That Saturday night, E and I got a date night! Rob and Sharon had so kindly volunteered to watch our children for us so we could go out. They even asked to watch them overnight for us!! But we decided to come back home that evening because we realized we would only be sleeping at the hotel and wanted a little more time to visit with them too.
My father in law had bought us tickets to a play called Camp David in D.C. as an anniversary gift. He has been generously buying us tickets to a show each year as an anniversary gift for about 4 years now.
So we took the evening off and went out to eat and went to the play and I snapped some shots on our way there and on our way home-

 

Friday and Sunday, Gramma came over for a visit-

Then on Monday, we took Sharon and Rob to Great Falls Park which is beautiful. E and I had never taken our children but we had gone when we were dating.

 Checking out a butterfly-

We got outside often with the kiddos and had a great time playing with Sharon and Rob outside-

We were so blessed by their visit and look forward to seeing them in Cape May later this summer!