A Day in The Life of Stockton

I've always wanted to do a day in the life of one of my kids and with Stock on spring break I thought it was a good time to try him first.  He is so funny and always onto new and better things i thought he would be more interesting then my older kids who like to play video games a lot and don't like their pictures taken. 

Eating his Reeses puffs and doing his "homework" aka writing the couple letters he knows in is coloring book.  He is really into coloring lately.  

 Shooting his fart gun at me.  what a boy. 

Stock love the tub but usually when it's on his terms.  Not when want him to bathe. 

He likes to dress himself.  Sometimes he lets me help him. His little bum is usually hanging out and he doesn't wear undies unless I catch him and make him put them on.

Notice the stickers on his shirt:

He usually has stickers or marker on him somewhere.

He loves to ride his bike.

We went scouting for bugs, which he could do all day.  He especially loves worms and potato bugs. This above is a ant.

He plays in the sandbox a lot.

Hinding under his animals 

dirty feet

I see you! One thing about taking his picture is I have to be quick! My camera can take up to 5 frames a second which I really need sometimes with him.

All these two do is wrestle.  Like all day.  Brett is the one who starts it but Stock joins in always. 

I wasn't feeling the best this day and once the boys were home from school and homework dinner and bed all started I didn't get his bedtime routine.  Maybe another day?

16 weeks

I've hesitated posting something about my pregnancy because I've had such weird emotions about it but this is my life so I'll say something about it. 

Let me start by saying this- 5th pregnancies are NO JOKE. I have zero energy- like ever.  I'm really moody because of that.  I started getting sick at around 5 weeks and I usually have until about 6 or7 before I really start to feel it. This made christmas break horrible for me.  Lucky for me Christmas day I was ok for the morning but still felt crapy all day. When I start my medicine to keep me from puking it makes me really, really tired for at least a week.  It's hard.  I didn't know how I was going to function but I found a way and started to do a little better once January got going.  My nausea hasn't been as horrible as some of my other kids.  More like with Brett's pregnancy so that has been heaven sent.  I still feel sick a lot but I'm able to eat.  I think two things help this as well and that's starting my medicine as soon as I feel yucky and trying to eat a lot and keep on top of that.   Because of this I've gained a lot of weight.  I have a 9 week photo of my belly somewhere that you can really see my belly.  It's like my body said -your going to do this to me again I'll let it ALL hang out! I'm huge for how far along I am.  I'm 16 weeks in the photo above.  and the way I'm standing makes me look smaller in the picture then I am in person. 

I kind of had it in my mind that I was ok with just having 4 kids.  I was getting used to the idea of us being done with the baby stage.  I was surprised how had the news I was expecting was for me.  I knew it was sort of in the plan but I was starting to write it off I guess and I was super depressed about the idea of being pregnant.  Not really the idea of the baby just the idea of being sick for the next 9 months.  It's super depressing.  It's hard to wake up and know I'm going to feel like garbage today.  Especially when you are only 6 weeks pregnant and sick and have SO many more to go. I still have days I cry because I'm so tired of being sick.  

My heart likes to freak out on me.  It's worse then morning sickness.  Like today I'm having the worse heart day in awhile.  It's hard to explain what it does but like me try. It beats really hard but not only that it beats weird to pump all the extra blood my pregnant body has.  It feels like my body can't handle being pregnant really.  If you just finish running and your heart is pounding what do you do? You take a few deep breaths and relax for a minute for it to calm down.  Mine I will get up to do some laundry and I'm Huffin and Puffin to do that.  Not all the time mind you but at least a few times a day I get it bad.  It makes it so I can't do anything.  That on top of already being really tired, sick, and hurting (my body hates me really) my house has gone to pot.  I just lay down and feel like such a failure. My kids need me and I can't help them very well.  My husband wants me to be function and I'm not.  My house is gross and I hate it.  My little boys have taken advantage of the fact that i'm doing and started to ruin my house.  Just today Brett stuffed a lot of toilet paper in my sick and turned it on.  Now that sink is clogged.  They have been drawing on everything, staining my carpet.  You name it.  I had no idea how much I did until I couldn't do it anymore.  It's depressing.  I have to make myself get little things done so I don't go crazy.  But yesterday I did way too much and today I'm paying for it. 

Someone told me just to write my pregnancy months off and do the best I can.  How can you do that with kids? I can't just lay down all day.  I can't not be their mom anymore.  I feel apart one day when Bryan got home from a run that I was so done.  I feel like all I do is yell at my boys, especially my older ones.  I need their help so bad and yet they need to be kids.  I need them to get their homework done and do their after dinner chore and they fight me more then ever about it.  

Part of my problem is I'm depressed about it (not horribly just down in the dumps sort of thing) and I feel like not trying anymore but I can't. And doing that makes me feel worse.  Lucky of me it's warming up and we can go outside and sit in the sunshine.  Also lucky for me my boys are a little older and that has helped.  

I feel dumb being so wussy about this because I know so many people going through a lot worse things then me.  My friend Janet just buried her husband in January, my cousins son has cancer, my Aunt's cancer has been really bad, my grandpa had to go to a rest home.  People have it a lot harder them me.  At least I get the best thing ever out of this.  Another baby (most likely a boy).  So here is to 4 months down and 5 to go of this.  I hope I survive.  

February

I'm still learning about my new computer- and for some reason I'm missing some of photos. But no worries- there are plenty left believe you me. 

I hate to admit it but I don't bake much. It takes a long time, they kids only really eat the frosting and it's a big mess. Stock really wanted cup cakes one day and so we made some.  I should really do this more often because they loved it.  I hope I feel better soon so we can do it all the time. 

 Brett loves books and I need to take time to read to him more often.

 This is his "mom take a picture of my feet" he seems to ask this a lot.  Which is funny because I love pictures of sweet toddler toes.

 These are Brett's Froggy boots. He loves them.  I mean LOVES them. He wore them to church last week when Bryan was getting him ready.  I love them too.

 What I have loved has been the weather in February.  We had lie 20+ days of above normal temps and I was not complaining.  I loved being outside without even a jacket.  We tried to soak up as much sun as possible.  I always realize how depressed winter makes me when the sun finally comes out because I'm so much happier.

 Stockton is going to the USU child lab preschool this semester.  I was really worried about it because it's a lot of driving but he loves it. This day was face painting.  I was surprised to find that they painted their OWN face.  Can you tell?  More on this crazy boy later.

 After all the warm it cooled down and snowed.

 Poor stock's bum is always hanging out of his pants.  Time to buy a belt!

 I love this photo.  I love the sun hitting him, I love the water dripping from his nose, and I love that he loves the tub.

 It's not often that Brett falls asleep on the floor.  He got home from church (we have 1-4) laid down on the floor and sacked out.  Bryan took advantage and put him on his chest.

The local paper does a monthly photo challenge and this month the theme was "I Love." I thought it was Love is for some reason which honestly I liked better then I love.  That one is too broad.  When I saw brett asleep on Bryan I opened the blind up and let some yummy light come in and told Bryan to kiss him. He complained for a minute then hurried and kissed him.  Here is something I've learned from lifestyle photographers.  Most of their stuff is "guided" lifestyle.  It's not often you can catch Bryan just kissing him.  A newborn yes but a almost there year old not always.  But really it's a true moment because it shows the love Bryan has for the little guy.  Brett is truly is best little buddy and they both have a sweet love for each other.

So the paper did print this picture and I was totally content.  I'll admit it feels really good to have someone come up to me at church and say "Hey I saw you picture in the paper! It was beautiful!" I put it on my photography Facebook page and as of today almost 1500 people have seen my post about this photo.  My goal for my photography this year is learn to capture true emotion and not just "cheese" faces.  I would so much rather see a photo like the one above then a stale I have to smile for the camera pose.  Don't get me wrong, there is a time and a place for those but really I love the true photos best, even if they were a little guided.  =)

jr jazz

I was on the fence about signing Blake up for jr jazz but i'm so, so glad that I did.  My cousin Jake was his coach and Blake knew half the team from school so he loved it from the beginning.  The best part of Jr Jazz has been Bryan.  He has been to every game but one and the one he missed I made him stay home with the other boys so I could go.  Basketball is Bryan's favorite sport and he is really good at it.  He has loved teaching Blake things he knows about it and cheers him on at every game.  They even go down to the church on the weekend and practice.  I took a lot more pictures then these but they are missing off my computer for some reason so this is all I have. 

Blake has scored at every game.  He loves it.  I hope this is the beginning of something he will love to do for a lot of years to come.