I Think I Would Rather Have My Arm Sawed Off

over ever spending this much time away from Ben again. It's killing me! I'm just no good without him. I guess that's a great way to feel after 8 years and 4 kids, though.

Speaking of kids, Elizabeth lost her first tooth! And Elaina laughs out loud and rolls from her back to her side. And poor Ella and Will both look like they're abused children. They've enjoyed the summer a ton and therefore have all the scrapes and bruises to prove it.

I have a lot of pictures to post from the fun things we've been doing. I just haven't been able to find the time to put them up because by the end of the day I'm pooped. 4 kids is a lot, incase you were wondering. And 4 kids 7 and under? Really a lot. But I really do love every minute of it.

The kids and I will be flying to Alaska in 8 short days. I am so so so excited. I keep having dreams that giant moose want to talk to me, though. Hee Hee. I guess the fact that I saw 5 moose in people's yards while I was there had more of an affect on me than I thought. Or maybe it's just my brains way of protecting itself from having dreams of what could (and probably will) happen on my marathon trip alone with 4 kids. I haven't flown with kids since Will was little enough to ride on my lap and he cried the whole time the last time I did it. Maybe Elaina will take pity on me and be the perfect little angel that she normally is. I'm sure hoping. And I'm not above the liberal use of Benadryl to help them sleep. Hey, our last and longest flight leaves at 8pm as far as our internal clocks will be concerned and it lasts for nearly 6 hours. And really, if you were taking 4 kids on a nearly 3,000 mile journey alone wouldn't you contemplate the use of sedatives? Maybe I should take some for myself. Ha ha!

Happy (Late) Father's Day

Ben, since you couldn't watch this yesterday anyway, I'm just putting this up now. We love you and miss you. I was talking with the kids about what they thought would be a good idea for a Father's Day gift. As you know, we already mailed two things, but this was the other idea that they came up with. A video of them dancing (or trying out their moves, as Will puts it) because as Beth said, "our Dad makes us happy and he thinks it's funny when we dance." We love you. Enjoy watching your crazy kids.

(For anyone else wanting to see this, just let me know and I'll add you as someone allowed to see videos on our You Tube. :-) )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbcdFFZEYkA

53 Days Left

Yes, I'm aware that it's totally pathetic to keep labeling my blog posts with how many days are left until we're in Anchorage with Ben. But I don't care because I miss him. Here are some pictures of some of what we did yesterday. I didn't get the treasure hunt in there, which is ok because the treasure wasn't actually buried under the X so there would have been 4 or 5 pictures of holes without treasure before the one that had it. You gotta love 7 year old pirates having treasure burying duties.

Messy garden planting/treasure burying hands.

Messy messy face on a happy happy girl.

Messy garden planting hands.
Every morning I wake up to all three older kids staring down and Elaina and I. They love her so much and are so happy to see her and fight over holding her all. the. time.
The messy hands accent the still (sort of) present tattoos on her arm from weeks ago.
She smiled at me, on purpose, yesterday! I was trying so hard to capture it on film but she thought that the camera was far too interesting to be bothered with smiling at her mother.
A hose with a pressurized sprayer at the end that is under your control. Every little boys dream.
He thought he'd put it to good use and attack his sister.
He realized a little too late that it may not have been a good idea.

Overall it was a pretty fun summer day.

58 Days Left

And if I somehow didn't get the math right and there's more time left, don't tell me. I miss Ben and this whole apart thing stinks.
Here are some random pictures of the kids doing fun things like going to the park, jumping on the trampoline, playing silly games, and there's one of Will vacuuming cause he's the bestest boy ever. And as you can tell by their messy faces, they've all been enjoying some treats at Grandma's.

Will's healing sunburn. And in case you've noticed that Will always has on the same shirt, it's because he loves it and I have to wash it constantly so that he can wear it pretty much every day.

What could be more fun than jumping on the trampoline in your pajamas?

The First Offical Summer Day Without Ben.

Only 63 more days to go. I promised pictures of the kids every day for Ben. So here you go, love. They were all clean and ready for bed. They've played and played but not much time goes by that they don't ask where Daddy is and how he's feeling. And if anyone gets an owie, they all cry that they want their Daddy.


We all miss you very much Ben. And we can all agree with the words of Beth that she put in her email to you tonight: "Dad, I'll never forget ya."

32 Weeks Down

Well, tomorrow, anyway.

Our sweet baby will be here sooner than I even want to think about. Now I'm to the part of pregnancy that goes so slowly and yet so quickly all at once. I officially sleep like crap which makes the nights drag on and the days long and tiring. But each Sunday (I'm due on a Sunday, so I add another week each Sunday) I am surprised to realize how close I really am. I only have 8 weeks left, at most. 8 weeks! That's no time! And I'm already starting to *hope* that she'll come in the first week of May. I know. I shouldn't do this to myself. I will regret it later. I just can't help it. It would be so nice to have here here and healthy right at the first of May. Then I will have several weeks to recover before we actually have to pack the trailer and leave Pocatello. Then she will be a month old before Ben goes to Alaska and the kids and I go to Amanda's for the summer. Ok. I have to stop thinking about that or May will not be a pretty month.

We still aren't sure what to name her. I'm torn between going for an E name or not. What if we do have another child after this and it's a daughter? I just keep thinking of the Duggar family (they have 17 kids) and how they're all named with J names just because the first three kids had J names and they didn't want to leave their 4th child out in case it was their last baby. (NOT that I'm going to be giving birth to 17 kids. That woman is a SAINT!) But what if we don't have another and she is the only one who's E less? Will she even care? We don't usually call Elizabeth by her full name, usually just Beth though. So is it even really as big of a deal as I'm making it out to be?

At least the kids all have ideas on what we should name her. Will would like her to have "a nice boy name". Ha ha. And Ella always says "wets name da baby Cake!" But that's because I really would love to name her Kate and Ella knows that, but since she can't say it correctly, we call her Baby Cake. Elizabeth gets the gold star for being the most creative, though. Yesterday she and I were in the car and out of the blue she said: "Mom, let's name the baby Rusty." I, of course, said no and that maybe we could name a dog Rusty some day. "Ok," she said, not to be detoured "then lets call her Phillipe" Uh, that's a boy's name, I told her. And we don't have any Latino heritage that we need to honor. "Alright Mom, this is my final offer. Tweeze." ????? Tweeze? "Yep, it's a great girls name." She said with a smile. "Of course" she continued "I would really like to name her Little Mermaid, or Ariel the most. But Will said no."

Poor Baby Cake

Happy Easter!

And as you can see, I'm doing some spring cleaning on my blog. So, while I get things in order, I'll post some Easter pictures for your viewing pleasure.

And yes, I know I'm missing from the bunny ear pictures. All five pictures that Ben and Will took of me are blurry beyond fixing. Which honestly, I'm not sad about. I'm 31 weeks pregnant. The last thing I'm in the mood for is a picture of me in bunny ears. :)

Happy Easter!