I'm gonna post family photos. Really.

It's been a re-e-e-e-e-e-eally long time since I posted my family photos.  So I am going to start putting up old ones and backdating.  Look forward to some very outdated family moments!  But first, enjoy these recent shots:

Gotta love a cowboy and a schoolgirl/Spiderman/pirate. No, this isn't a Halloween photo.  Just any old day at my house.

My mom, myself and my daughter at LDS General Conference.

My kindergartener recently told me all about the birth of his younger brother, three years ago.  I was impressed with his memory, even up to the part about how Daddy bought a new carseat in a big box.  (It was an emergency purchase while I was at the hospital, because baby came two weeks early after a yard equipment mishap and we didn't have all our baby stuff yet.) My kindergartener's understanding of the birth process is so-so.

After realizing how much torture it was to have two kids in two separate baseball/softball leagues at once last spring, we put our daughter in fall softball this year so we could have one little league team to attend at a time.

With a whole heck of a lot of encouragement from mom, my kids finished the Library Summer Reading Challenge and won a free day at the Museum of Natural History. Why do I have to nag my kids to read?  My parents used to have to enforce limits on my reading when I was a kid, by making me put my book away at the table or stop reading and go to sleep.  I guess bookwormishness is not hereditary.

We had a bumper crop of apples this year.  It was the first time the apples trees we planted when we moved in to our house really produced.  I'm glad we went with dwarf trees.  We have enough! Even our crabapple tree, as it turns out, produces delicious, golf ball-sized fresh apples.  We bought a dehydrator to attempt to deal with all of the excess.  I learned that making fruit leather is hard.  The Internet really failed me.  Why are all the people who know how to make fruit leather posting such vague, unhelpful instructions on their blogs?  It is a good thing we had so many apples to experiment with, because it wasn't until after several tries that we were able to make anything sort of edible with the dehydrator.

Cloth Diapering

I am grateful to the friend who explained cloth diapering to me before I had my first baby, thus saving me lots of money and helping me reduce guilt about my contributions to the landfill.  I am paying it forward here and sharing what I have learned about cloth diapering for anyone else who needs the info.

They sell all-in-one diapers, with absorbent material on the inside and plastic/vinyl/whatever on the outside and I have used them but they are more expensive. Unless you are committed to drip-drying, I find that they wear out faster, too.  I especially dislike them for new babies because new babies go through so many daily diapers.  A much less expensive but effective option is to buy old-fashioned square diaper liners and diaper covers.  

I got my square diaper liners from this local company: http://www.alltogetherdiaper.com/ They work wonderfully and are extremely durable. They lasted for all four of my babies! Do not buy those thin,  horrible "Gerber diaper burp cloths" that they sell at big box stores.  They look too thin and cute to be absorbent because they are NOT absorbent. 

I may be old-fashioned in my preference for square diaper liners, but I have no desire to use old-fashioned pins.  I love Snappi fasteners. No poke risk.

To fold them, fold the front part in thirds.  Let the back part stay wide.

If you want even more padding, such as to avoid changing the diaper at night, you can even add one of these 1/3 size liners in the middle but usually it is not necessary.

Add the Snappi.  It has tiny comb ends that catch the fabric.  Hold it at one side, pull and stretch it to the other side, and then pull the middle comb down.

Then add the diaper cover to keep all that wetness away from you.  I have found that the kind that are shaped like disposables work better than plastic pants.  They come with snaps or velcro.  Snaps stay nice longer but I use these velcro ones by Dappi that I got from Baby Best Buy because they are the least expensive diaper covers in the world.  You can get them here: http://www.babybestbuy.com/dappi-diaper-covers-277.html They aren't as cute as the bright-colored diapers you can get elsewhere but bright colors are impractical for me because I machine wash on the "heavy duty" cycle with bleach.  I machine dry, too. You will find lots of rules online about diaper care that teach how to make diapers last longer through gentle cleaning and drip drying.  I ignore these and stay sane.  Hey, most of the liners lasted through four kids in spite of my non-gentle cleaning ways and I only rarely had to replace the covers, which I could afford to do because I bought such a cheap brand.

Cloth diapers do not go in a diaper genie.  Again, you will find lots of "helpful," complicated tips online about storing dirty cloth diapers.  For me, the easiest, cheapest, non-stinky way to store them is in a bucket with a gamma seal lid, lined with a trash bag.  I got mine here: http://beprepared.com/5-gallon-bucket-with-lid.html

If you use the non-gentle cleaning cycle I use, you will rarely need to rinse a diaper.  A diaper with a moderate amount of sticky gunk in it will clean in the heavy duty cycle. But there are occasions when the diaper is extra crazy full and too sticky to shake out into the toilet.  When I was living in my previous residence, we bought an OsoCozy diaper sprayer that attaches to the toilet for this purpose: http://www.alltogetherdiaper.com/Products/Other-Accessories/OsoCozy-Cloth-Diaper-Sprayer In my current residence, we have a pull-out spray faucet in the bathroom sink, that I can just point at a diaper as I hold it over the toilet and spray.

My Daughter's Winning, R-Rated Reflections Film

My 7-year-old daughter was extremely enthused about Reflections this year.  She submitted to the film, visual art, 3D art and photography contests.  A sheepish PTA volunteer called me and told me that her film had won, but would it be okay if they didn't show it because of the nudity?  Or was that just too silly because it's just an infant and of course there's nothing wrong with it but they were afraid sixth grade boys might make fun of it but they would show it if we really wanted them to but would we mind if they didn't?  So it wasn't publicly shown, until now.  But she did win, after all, so I think her self-esteem is fine.

Baby Blessing Photos

Why you should finish diapering before filming

Reminiscing about Pregnancy

The first time I was pregnant, I felt pretty adorable. 

And why shouldn't I?  Everywhere I went, people complimented me and fussed over me and sometimes even threw parties in my honor.

During my second pregnancy, I portrayed a pregnant character in a local community theater musical.  My dancing abilities fluctuate somewhere between adequate and sub-par, so I am not accustomed to a lot of praise for that aspect of my performance.  But whenever I pulled off a solidly adequate feat of dance in this particular production, the directors would gush and even encourage other cast members to emulate me:  "Look at April!  She's doing the knee spin and she's pregnant!"

By the third time around, I was older and so was my maternity wardrobe, but I still felt reasonably classy in my motherly state:

In fact, I got kind of sentimental about the whole thing, thinking this might be my last time around, and the idea of a body cast finally appealed to me, even though I had shunned the idea as weird during my first two pregnancies.  (It helped that I found a kit that made a cast that looked like a drape over a pregnant body, instead of a naked pregnant body.)

During my most recent pregnancy,  I was feeling my age. I would look in the mirror and see this:

That was on a good day.  On a bad day, my reflection looked more like this to me:

While I was much less fond of pregnancy this time around, I loved the hospital as much as ever.  Many women do not share my enthusiasm for the hospital.  They prefer to avoid that sterile environment and have their babies in the comfort of home.   While I respect their right to do so, I would never (and didn't ever) consider having a baby anywhere but at the hospital.  When it comes to giving birth, I like sterility and I can't imagine that my home would be comfortable--after all, I am the one who would have to clean it after all that childbirth happened.  Plus, my other kids live at my home.  I would have my baby in a hospital even if they didn't conveniently happen to offer medical care there.  There are so many reasons I love the hospital:

• They have cleaning crews.
• They have room service (and it is yummy!  People probably just think that hospital food is bad because they happen to be sick whenever they eat it.)
• Friends and family stop by to visit, sometimes bearing gifts, and no one cares that I am entertaining them in my pajamas.
• I get to stay in a room (almost) all by myself and relax and read or watch a movie.
• The only other person staying in my room is a darling new baby and if I do need some personal time to nap or shower, all I have to do is press my call button and someone arrives to babysit him.
• This last time, the hospital added the charming perk of a celebration dinner for two--it was like a date.

It makes me kind of sad to think that for the rest of my life, I will only get a chance to stay in the hospital if I get sick or injured.  I think that would make the experience much less pleasant.

He's smiling now!

Here is the first photo where we succeeded at capturing the baby's smile.  He is a happy little guy, and smiles often now.  

Infant Pancakes?

Speaking of pancakes, my husband shot these photos of the 4-year-old enjoying his--especially the powdered sugar on top.

I took my baby in for his 2-months-old appointment a few days ago.  His 2- and 4-year-old brothers accompanied us.  Both big brothers were thrilled about a trip to the doctor's office and wanted in on the action.  When the pediatrician came into the room, they practically accosted him, each showing off their owies and boo-boos for his inspection. "Wow, they're talkative today," the doctor observed. "Lots of energy!" "Yes," I agreed. "Or are they always like this?" "Yes," I agreed again. As he started the baby's exam, the doctor asked the big brothers, who had both climbed up onto the exam table as well, what the baby eats. "Milk," said the 4-year-old. "Pancakes," said the 2-year-old. The pediatrician was amused by my 2-year-old's answer.  The 4-year-old was not.  He tried to rectify this misinformation: "The baby does not eat pancakes," he refuted.  "He just eats milk.  It is special baby milk that comes out of Mommy's tummy."

The Nursery

We recently added some finishing touches to our nursery.  It's much cuter than the boring ceiling we painted, and I posted that, so I thought I would show off the nursery, too.  A lot of the same stuff has been here (or rather, in our previous nurseries) since the nursery belonged to our first child, but we've added to it with each baby. 

We have so many beautiful baby blankets that it seems like a shame to hide them in the closet, so we hang them on the wall.  Many of them are gifts.

I was nervous about hanging anything above the crib that could fall down and hurt the baby, so I made these picture frames  from fabric for our four babies' photos.

I painted this when I was expecting my first baby.  We were living in an apartment then, and I wanted a mural in the nursery, so I painted it on fabric so I could take it with me when we moved.

This was my husband's dresser in college.  Of course, it was less colorful then.  It was so beaten up and ugly that my sister borrowed it once for a prop in a play she was in that required a starving student kind of set.   I painted it when we moved out of the apartment to a condo and got our furniture out of storage.  My oldest was still the baby then.  The rocking chair behind it was from a thrift store.  It was ugly, too, before we fixed it up.  As you can tell, we don't have a big furniture budget.

We found this shelf, with peeling paint and most of the hooks missing, in the garage of the condo we bought.  I fixed it up and put it to use, displaying my babies' and my blessing clothes, a "Where the Wild Things Are" clock (made from a free medicine ad clock that I got from a sales rep) , and various handmade gifts my babies received.  Most of the gifts came from my sister, who is a gift giver extraordinaire.

Baby toys hang behind the door.

We found fan blade covers to make the fan look painted at Lowe's.    Later, my mom gave me a rug with the same colors.

Here is the more utilitarian part of the room.  We use cloth diapers at home and disposables when we go out and we can't convince our toddler to potty train, so we have two kids in two kinds of diapers.  So there is a lot of stuff over here.

Hair

I was born with long, dark hair, so before I had my first baby, I imagined that my kids would have the same:

Um, no.  My first child looked like this:

She did have a tiny bit of hair, but it was blonde, thin and nearly invisible. By the time she was two, she only had grown this much hair:

These ringlets, that took so long to grow in, did not last long.  A week before her third birthday, she cut almost all of them off right along her head and dropped them one at a time into a bowl.  It was a premeditated crime.  Sometime earlier that week, she had stolen a pair of scissors from a high cupboard and hidden them in her room in preparation for the haircut.  So she was practically bald again, just like her younger brother, who was born with just as little hair:

Same goes for #3, but at least he had a different face than my first two clone babies:

By the time my newest arrival came, I had grown accustomed to blonde, nearly bald babies, so I wasn't expecting this:

Not only does he have hair, but it appears to be brown!  (My first three were all blonde.  The first and third still are, but my second child's curly blonde hair recently turned into straight, light brown hair.)

The Giraffe Blanket

I have some friends who have a lovely tradition of honoring new arrivals with giraffe blankets.  My newborn loves his.

Big Siblings

"Is he a good baby?" everyone asks me.

I always answer yes.  I wonder sometimes if that is the wrong answer, because a follow-up question is often, "So he sleeps through the night?"  Um, no.  Is that what a good baby does?

Another common question is, "How do your other kids like him?"  I truthfully reply that they love him.

I would like to take some time here to elaborate on how the big siblings are enjoying the new one.

My oldest, age 7, likes to "babysit" the baby.  This is actually pretty helpful.  She takes the baby into a room with her and puts him down on a blanket surrounded by toys and picks him up or gives him a binkie as needed, freeing me up occasionally while I do the dishes or something.

My second child says, "He's so cute!" and then asks, "Can we keep him?" just as he would ask about a potential pet.  Then he affectionately tries to touch the baby's eyes.  (I am trying to encourage him to express his affection in some other way.)

I was most worried about my toddler, the only one who has never had a younger sibling before.  His personality seemed a little more jealousy-prone than his older siblings, but like his older siblings before him, the newest big brother is much more likely to smother the baby with affection than out of spite.  It's a good thing, because I have enough on my hands just protecting the baby from his older siblings' often rowdy love.

At the hospital, my toddler learned that grown-ups enjoy photographing new babies, and he insisted on joining in the fun.  I am very grateful for electronic photography, because I didn't have to worry about my film being wasted.  Here are some of my toddler's photos of the baby:

He also took some more abstract photos in the hospital room, which reveal a great deal about a toddler's perspective.  Okay, maybe they reveal just one thing: that toddlers are short and see a lot of stuff that is near or on the ground.

I am so glad he didn't drop the camera when he took that last one.

This next one is a photo my husband  took.  When this photo was taken, my toddler screamed, "No!  Take picture baby!  No take picture me ever again!"

Fortunately, he has since lifted the ban. This is a relief, because he is at quite a photogenic stage right now.  He looks like a cherub, with his blonde curls, puffy cheeks and blue eyes.  He may never be this cute ever again.

In spite of his own rules, there are a few self portraits among his works.  I am guessing that is because he is not very good at photography yet and didn't realize the camera was backwards.

For a couple days before each of my baby well-child visits, I track his eating and diaper habits so I can answer rationally when the pediatrician asks about them.  (There's an app for that, of course.)  One day I found my toddler standing over the basinet holding the tablet.  "Baby sleeping," he informed me, and showed me the tablet.  Sure enough, he had opened up the Baby Tracker app, found the sleep icon, and marked it.  I hadn't been tracking sleep, but with further investigation, I found that my toddler had tracked baby sleep on multiple occasions.

I love it when my toddler sings lullabies to the baby.  He makes up his own songs,. The songs always include the baby's name and the word "ever," which is currently my toddler's favorite word, among other lyrics as the muse inspires him.  He frequently gestures and always sings high and soft.

Before my youngest sister was born, my parents took us to a class for older siblings at the hospital.  I still remember how fun that was for me, so I found one for my kids to attend. (My hospital didn't have one, but another hospital nearby did.)  Technically, only my older two kids were old enough for the class, but my toddler was present and engaged. And the kids actually remember some of the things they learned!  My oldest videotaped the baby's first bath at home and recited the handwashing advice she learned from the class in her video.