My boys...my life

Elijah the day he was born.

The "big" boys LOVE Eli, and always want to hold and kiss him.

My best effort at getting all three boys to look at the camera!

Sweet baby just gazing into space.

Hiking on the 4th of July just above Woodland.

My boys are my life. As anyone with kids can attest, your life revolves around taking care of them. This is especially true of a newborn! So now that I have three little boys I feel that my life has become days filled with feeding kids, cleaning up after kids, stopping fights, wiping bums, wiping noses, reading books, singing songs, watching cartoons, disciplining, etc., etc. The amazing thing is that I am totally content with doing this! Elijah has brought a new found love for motherhood for me. I have more work now, but I find more joy in it. I think I was just stuck in a mothering rut before he was born. It helps that he is a good little baby who likes to be held, eat, and sleep. He even sleep really well at night, and in his own little cradle. My other two boys would never sleep in their cradles when they were newborns. This facilitated me sleeping with them on the couch as I held them. Elijah will sleep for 3 hours at a time by himself, thus allowing me a couple of hours of sleep in my own bed! He is on a good little schedule of eating, being awake, and napping...repeating every three hours. I can't believe that it has been almost a month since he was born. It has gone by in a whirlwind. I am still trying to get the three child thing down to a science. My daily goal is to have the three boys and myself fed (breakfast), dressed, teeth brushed, and beds made by noon! Some days we make it, some days we don't. If we have to go anywhere I plan for 2 hours of preparation to get us all ready and feed the baby at least once before we step out of the door. At least I have boys and I don't have to do the hair thing! I feel like I am working so hard just to keep my head above the water, doing the things that HAVE to be done. Minor details like showering (down to every other day), cleaning (done the bathroom only once in the last month!), and clipping my toenails (not since Elijah's birth) go by the wayside. Oh well! I don't know if it is that I already have older children in different stages of their childhood, but I have been savoring Elijah's baby days more than I did the other two. I'm not finding myself longing for him to get older and be able to talk (because then they just sass), walk (because then they just get into everything), eat table food ( ah, the diapers), or anything else that you are eager for your children to do. I am just enjoying my hours of sitting on the couch feeding him, rocking him to sleep, and letting him hold my finger in his tiny little hand. I love my boys, and I love my life.

What a weekend!

Ahhhhhh, I love July. I love to celebrate the birthday of our nation, and the arrival of the pioneers to Utah. We had such a great 4th weekend and were able to spend time with our families. We started the 4th with the annual Oakley parade. Last year we had to drive all the way to Boulder City to find a parade, so we are so excited to be home where everything happens so close.

Our family watching the parade.

Elijah, Noah (behind the balloon!), Jack, Luke, and Evan...the McNeil boy cousins.

After the parade we went to the Butikofer's for a HUGE BBQ. Of course Billie Jo out did herself and we were spoiled by the spread she put on for us. We didn't even eat the rest of the day! Feeling a little guilty for the vast amounts of food we consumed, we decided to go for a hike at Knobletts. It was so beautiful and the kids were loving to hike, pick wildflowers, and throw rocks into the pond, but we didn't think about bug spray and were swarmed by mosquitoes. We turned around about half way through the hike because of the bugs. Mosquito bite tally: Luke, Noah, and Eli - 0, Rick - 2, me - 12. I guess mosquitoes are attracted to the sweet smell of breast milk! Oh well, the bites were worth the beautiful scenery.

After getting the kids bathed and in their pajamas we lit firework and did sparklers, while playing patriotic music in the background. Noah was having a great time and kept yelling, "happy birthday" to everyone. We tried to get him to yell, "happy birthday, America!", but he just kept wishing happy birthday to everyone present. The kids loved our little firework party because they were right in the action. I guess you don't have to go to a big firework show to enjoy the spirit of it.

Our saturday was pretty low key, so Elijah decided to spice things up. About 11:00 pm I tried to feed him right before I went to bed, but he was being pretty fussy and wasn't eating very well. I finally gave up and tried to put him to bed, but he was fussing and making gasping sounds so I got him out of bed and decided to hold him until he was feeling better. I sat with him on the couch for a few minutes before I got really worried about him. He was gasping for every breath and couldn't seem to catch his breath. Rick and my mom and dad were also very worried about his labored breathing and convinced me to take him to Heber to the ER. After Rick and my dad gave him a blessing we loaded into the car and dove to the hospital. They hooked him up to a monitor to check is pulse and oxygen saturation level and found that he couldn't keep his oxygen above 90%, so the doctor checked him out, took chest x-rays, and did blood work to see what could be wrong. Everything came back perfectly normal! The doctor was bewildered because nothing seemed to be wrong, but his oxygen levels couldn't stay up. He called to Primary Children's Hospital for an opinion and the doctor there told him to send us down to them. So, after three hours in the ER in Heber we had to head to Salt Lake. Eli and I even got to ride in the ambulance because they had to keep him monitored and keep him on oxygen. After three more hours of observation at Primary Children's the doctors decided that he was fine and we could go home because Elijah's oxygen levels had stayed above 90% for quite a while. We finally got back home about 7:00 am, and were completely exhausted!

Sunday was a very special day because both Eli and Evan (Allen and Patrice's baby) were blessed. We had a big dinner after with all of our families and the day couldn't have been better. Rick and I were surprised that we did as well as we did considering we had no sleep the night before.

Can you believe that we only took ONE picture the whole day, and my eyes were closed! Hello, don't we live in the digital age? How is THIS the only picture we got?

What a weekend. We absolutely love being with our families, celebrating and sharing special times together. Thanks so much to everyone for sharing this time with us.