A Peek at the Poulsens

THIS IS MY TENTH POST TODAY. I was so behind and now I will be caught up and I'm exhausted! I did some posts earlier during quiet time but most of them happened tonight. Jack is sleeping in Natalie's room for the first time (cross your fingers!) and Austin is at basketball, and I am finally tackling all the pictures I've been saving up for weeks. I sometimes think about just giving up and not worrying about posting everything, but that hurts my heart! I love these little memories in every picture and I never look back on old posts and think, "wow, I should really put less pictures up." First, here are the leftover pictures from when Max came home that I want to keep but don't feel like adding into the original Max post: And I guess this is an appropriate time to mention that Peanut, our wonderful little doggy of 15 years, went to doggy heaven earlier this month. He was the best dog our family could have imagined growing up with and it is weird...

 Bundled up, going out Watch us as we roll about!  Snowman here, Jack inside Using Legos for the eyes. Snowy day, all is well We love Daddy, he is swell.

Whew, it was a morning. Long story short, I had to take all the kids to Stockton's speech appointment and it did not go well (Natalie threw the first legitimate unreasonable totally out of control screaming crying tantrum she's thrown in months...talk about bad timing) and by the time I got home and got the kids somewhat settled, I needed to go hide for a while, so I crouched in the stairwell with a bowl of froot loops and no one found me for at least a couple minutes. Even those few minutes were restorative though because it allowed me to read a conference talk and take a deep breath and listen to my children playing nicely and be able to muster up the courage and strength to dive back into my day. I'M A MOM OF THREE. Sometimes this simple fact is just so unbelievable to me. Three kids? All mine? All within three years? All beautiful and healthy and different and wonderful? I am SO blessed and I love them SO much but I still  feel like I'm just playing house so...

Stockton turned 2 in September and not only was he not using words, but he didn't seem to understand what we were saying to him. His pediatrician recommended that we start speech therapy with him while he is still so young and impressionable and not frustrated, so he's been going once a week for the past few months and it's going well. He likes playing with the SLP, Kara ("ka-RUH, ka-RUH" as Stockty says) and I'm grateful to have some professional help. Mostly they just play during the sessions and Kara tries to encourage speech that way, and some days go better than others but we're noticing solid improvement in his eye contact and joint attention/focus, so that's encouraging. ha, he loves the exer  confused that Natalie is asleep // reveling in the bubbles at Lost in Fun (he has the white stripe on his pants) He's also made many improvements with his speech at home, which is so exciting. Seriously, not being able to really communicat...

We spent an awesome week with the Poulsens, basically seeing them every day for 8 days in a row. Makenzie and Kevin were in town from St. George, and Makae was back from BYU-Idaho. It was soooo good having them home. (Kevin is Kenzie's boyfriend.) "light, light" mandatory fun We played games, laughed, ate, watched movies, stayed up late, got up early, played with the kids, and just enjoyed each others' company. Christmas Eve we had our traditional Chinese food lunch, but this year we had matching shirts, commissioned by Austin and made by Makenzie (she works at a graphic printing place, so she hooked us up.) I'll have to refer to Austin for a comment (they are his banana chair man drawings, after all), but here are the shirts. Each person's shirt has their nickname on the back too, which is fun. these are ours - clockwise from bottom left: Natalie, Austin, Jessie, Jack, Stockton We hosted dinner one night and then watched Father of the ...